Ruby Slippers: Babysitter AU
by SumDumMuffin
Summary: Highschool valedictorian Glynda accepts a babysitting position for a local doctor, and gets more than she bargained for when her new charge takes a shine to her. Babysitter AU. Fluff. Originally posted on Ao3.
1. Glynda's First Babysitting Job

I do not own RWBY or any of these characters. They are the creations of Rooster Teeth and the magnificent Monty Oum, may he rest in peace.

* * *

"I take it you're Mrs. Rose?" Glynda said to the woman who peeked out the door. This was Glynda's first babysitting assignment, so she'd worn her best button-down shirt and business skirt, and she'd braided her hair and cleaned her glasses.

"Call me Summer," said the woman. She had deep bags under her eyes and her hair was a little dis-shelved. She had a white coat on. She smiled grimly as she opened the door another crack to hold out her hand. "And thanks so much for coming on such short notice."

Glynda smiled and adjusted her glasses and shook the hand. "It's really no problem, Summer," she said. In all honesty, what with her internship ending abruptly when the company went under, she was grateful enough that Ozpin's project for AP business turned out to be popular enough to support last-minute volunteers. Paid volunteers, even, so maybe that word wasn't the correct one.

"Yang's mother is in town so it's just little Ruby today," Summer said.

"Oh, ok," Glynda said. Her brow furrowed as she thought of a bunch of follow-up questions. "Uh, 'little Ruby'?" was what she decided on.

Summer opened the door all the way. There was a small child wrapped around her leg, dressed in a giant red hoodie, bawling her eyes out.

"Mommy!" choked the child, "Mommy please don't abandon me!"

Summer's expression flattened. "No, see, this time I hired a babysitter so, legally, it wouldn't be abandonment."

"Was I bad? I'll be good, I promise! Please don't leave mommy! Please please please!"

"I will be back before midnight (probably)," Summer deadpanned to her leg.

"But that's forever!"

"A bit clingy, I see," Glynda joked. Summer shot her an exasperated expression.

Summer picked up her daughter by the armpits and looked her in the eye. Ruby calmed down slightly, wiping her eyes on her little wrists.

"Someday, Ruby," Summer said, "You will understand why I became a doctor. And you will know that no matter how many nights I have to work, you're all that's ever mattered to me."

Summer hugged her daughter. Ruby returned the desperate hug, falling silent during the embrace. Glynda coughed.

Then Summer tossed her daughter at Glynda. "And now I need to go save some lives. Toodles!"

"Mrs. Rose!" Glynda said, almost dropping her charge, "I still have a lot of questions-"

"You'll be fine!" Summer called over her shoulder.

"You mean me or your daughter?" Glynda yelled at the receeding woman.

"Pick one!"

Ruby cried even more as Summer got into her car, but as soon as the car drove out of sight, Ruby went silent and went limp in Glyndas arms. Glynda shook her charge a little to try to get a response. It didn't quite work.

"So," Glynda said to the child in her arms. "I'm Glynda."

"I am nothing," Ruby intoned. "My joy has been ripped away from me. My life is a nightmare from which I cannot awake."

"Is Ruby your name or is it short for something?"

"Yes."

"Um," Glynda said, "Ok."

Ruby stared off into the distance.

"Do you prefer to walk or will I have to carry you everywhere?" Glynda said.

Ruby slumped a little.

"Oooh-K," Glynda said, adjusting her center of balance. "I'm going to take you inside now, ok?"

* * *

The house was pretty large; to be expected, if one of the parents was a doctor.

The house was also pretty empty. There was a bowl and some accessories out for a dog, which Glynda would later find out was being watched by an uncle. Somebody named 'Taiyang' was out this week. There was also someone named Yang who had things in the house with his or her name on it. Glynda really wished she'd had time for some prep work before heading over.

Ruby let herself down from Glynda's arms and walked over to the couch in front of the front window. She crawled up to sit on its back and placed her hand on the window and looked sad.

"So, umm," Glynda said to her charge. "What do you want to do for the next six hours?"

"Nothing," the child sighed.

"Cool, ok, yeah," Glynda said to the room. She took a seat on the couch next to Ruby. "So how old are you?"

"Loss has aged me an eternity."

"So like eight?"

"Eight and a half."

Ozpin had said babysitting was easy. You get to network with parents, play with kids, and after they fall asleep you can get some homework done. Glynda hadn't exactly had much experience with children, so she figured this would be a good opportunity to start, and it'd probably beat fetching coffee and calibrating test equipment.

She breathed. This would be fun, Glynda told herself.

"So I wasn't given any ground rules," Glynda said. "Anything I should be aware of?"

"I don't know," Ruby intoned.

"Are you allergic to anything?"

"Happiness," Ruby intoned distantly. "Also broccoli."

"Ok- wait," Glynda said. "You're not just saying that to get out of eating your green vegetables, are you?"

"No," Ruby pouted, "Broccoli is my mortal enemy. I avoid it at all costs."

"So what do you like to eat?"

"Cookies."

Glynda chuckled. "Well, ok, but not before dinner."

Ruby stuck her tongue out at Glynda. "You can't tell me what I can't eat! You're not my mom!"

"Your mom left me in charge," Glynda stated, a little annoyed.

"Why'd she leave some dumb teenager in charge?" Ruby tucked her hands into her armpits.

"I'll have you know that I'm slated for valedictorian next year," Glynda jabbed. She put her hands on her hips and shot an accusatory look at her charge.

Ruby mirrored Glynda's expression. "Well I'm the best reader out of all the third graders in the district, so nyeh!"

They glared at each other until Glynda realized she was in a stand-off with an eight year old.

"Eight and a half year old," Ruby corrected.

Glynda cleared her throat and straightened her back. "Back to the issue at hand," Glynda said, "What do you normally do when your mom's gone?"

Ruby's anger dissipated back into sadness and she slumped against the windowpane again. Glynda wondered if maybe the anger was an improvement.

"Wait for her to get back," Ruby breathed onto the window and drew a heart in the condensation.

"Doooo you have to do any homework?"

"No."

"Or anything to do at all?"

Ruby sighed theatrically, in the way that only children can.

Glynda shot an exasperated expression to the wall and then picked up her charge. "Ok, maybe you'll find something you'll like in your room?"

* * *

Ruby's room had the biggest collection of LEGO construction blocks that Glynda'd ever seen. There were three tables stacked completely with city vistas and desert tombs and alien worlds and scenes from famous movies, all in intricate interlocking plastic brick configurations. Somewhere in the room was also a bed and dresser.

"Wow, Ruby," Glynda said, "Did you build all these?"

Ruby tried not to look happy at the compliment. "Yeah."

"That's pretty cool!"

"I guess."

"You don't think so?"

"I had instructions for most of them." Ruby scratched behind her head.

"So you built some of them though? That's even cooler!"

Ruby's mouth almost wobbled into a smile. "The agriculture set," she pointed to the table closest to her bed. "I designed all of those."

Glynda let Ruby down and Ruby went off to pick various constructions. She showed Glynda the alien spaceship and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sewer base and the submarine and the setpiece from that one British phone booth show and the scale model Panzerkamfwagon IV and also the firetruck, explaining each set more confidently and happily than the last. By the time she got to the ninjas, it was hard to tell she'd been a total sad sack only fifteen minutes prior.

Glynda picked a tractor up and it broke apart.

"Ahhh!" Glynda said.

Ruby took the halfs from her sitter and snapped some pieces back into place.

"It's kind of not good," Ruby said as she moved the tractor around on the table. It had some gear pieces that picked up little yellow pillars as it moved over them.

"Woah," Glynda said, "That's amazing, Ruby! I think it's plenty good!"

Ruby didn't stifle her smile this time. "Thanks." She rolled the tractor around some more.

"When I'm growed up, I'm going to design combine harvesters," Ruby said as she shifted some of the gearing on the plastic block contraption. "With guns. Pew pew."

"I don't mean to crush your dream," Glynda said, "But combine harvesters have already been invented."

"By several people independently, I know," Ruby said. She stood up straight and went into lecture mode- something Glynda thought you had to be like 30 years old to do. "But several grains don't have harvesters designed for them at all, and many commercial foods such as blueberries and peaches have many unique challenges that automation has to overcome."

And then Glynda had a surprisingly intellectual conversation about agricultural practices with her charge. She almost forgot that Ruby was only eight - and a half - until she used a word that was too big and the illusion shattered as she tried to explain it.

* * *

 _General Glynda surveyed her troops; the aliens, the mutants, the time travelers, the fellowship. She was the leader of an army of misfits and outcasts, but she solemnly vowed that she would lead them into a better, promised land-_

 _A land currently defended by the fiendish Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose and her evil minions and, in this location, a massive desert tomb structure, complete with mummies. The Sankt-Kaiser herself sat atop her custom combine harvester, immune to laser blasts, magic, and mustard._

 _The General had to keep her mutant ninjas on reserve, in case the Sankt-Kaiser fielded her own. Her Balrog could incinerate the mummies, but Glynda knew her opponent had a firetruck. And the time traveler wasn't effective under this season's showrunner. That just left one option._

 _"Aliens!" the General yelled, "Do your thing!"_

 _"Hahahaha!" laughed Sankt-Kaiser Ruby, "You think abducting some cows is going to help you, General?"_

 _The Sankt-Kaiser lifted her arms up madly, and the desert temple started spinning its minarets, with the mummies brandishing their ankhs and prayers. "Sand lasers!" she yelled._

 _"But little did you know," Glynda said, "That your mummy's gods...were actually aliens!"_

 _The pedestal atop the pyramid flipped around to reveal a bust of alien head- the same kind of alien head that Glynda's aliens had!_

 _"No! Nooooooo!" Sank-Kaiser Ruby yelled as her troops defected, shooting lazers beams at her farming equipment._

 _"But no matter!" Ruby yelled, activating her harvester, "I'll deal with you myself! LET'S REAP!"_

* * *

Ruby's stomach growled.

"Are you hungry?" Glynda asked, dropping her General persona. She was hungry as well, but she wasn't about to show any weakness. That last part was a part of her persona in general.

Ruby bit her lip and nodded.

She looked out the window- it was already dark. Wow, had they lost track of time. Glynda picked up her charge. "So Summer didn't leave any instructions for dinner or anything. What do you normally eat?"

"We usually have cookies!" Ruby said.

"Usually?"

"Yes." Ruby stated. "For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes it's candy-canes instead."

Glynda looked at Ruby's face. Ruby fidgeted.

"I- I mean," Ruby said, her mouth wobbling, "I guess we eat normal food too..."

Glynda put her army away and jostled slightly the girl in her arms. "C'mon," she said, "Let's go feed you." Glynda smirked. "Something not 80% sugar by volume."

* * *

The pantry was, unfortunately, less than well stocked. Sure, there were the staples; flour, sugar, a full spice rack. If Glynda knew how to and wanted to cook something from scratch she probably could.

There was also, just out of reach for a small child, a massive stockpile of cookies. Glynda could reach them if she pulled a chair out and climbed up to them, or if she was willing to use her gymnastics skills for something so petty.

She checked the refrigerator; a couple cold slices of pizza, some cans of beer in the back (Summer drank?), some cheese and butter and a carton of milk. And for some reason, several broccoli stalks.

"I can microwave some of this broccoli-"

"NOOO!" Ruby said, "Broccoli is the worst!"

Glynda scratched her head. Yeah, she remembered that.

"There's a bag of frozen diced vegetables," Glynda said, "And maybe some bread? Do you like sandwiches? Because I'm pretty confident that my cooking skill is great enough to make a PB&J."

"We don't have jam," Ruby said. She saw Glynda's frown, and backtracked "But I like peanut butter!"

Ruby poked her fingers together and tilted her head down. She looked up with her eyes. "And maybe I could have a cookie for dessert?"

Glynda ruffled Ruby's hair and climbed up on a chair to the cookie stockpile.

There were a lot of them here; clearly Summer wanted to keep some on hand for her daughter. But there was no way Ruby couldn't figure out to get up here if she really wanted to; what was stopping her charge from waiting for an opening and sneaking out her to grab any number of these delectable pastry disks?

"You can have a cookie too if you want," Ruby said.

Glynda scrunched her face, and then plucked two cookies from the stockpile. One of which she stuffed into her mouth in one motion. She'd finished it by the time she climbed back down.

Glynda set the machine to shoot microwaves at a bowl of vegetables while she put some peanut butter on some bread. She poured two glasses of milk (so they could grow up big, Glynda told Ruby.) It wasn't the worst dinner, Glynda decided.

Glynda stuffed the first sandwich into her mouth and started the second one. Ruby only laughed goodnaturedly at Glynda's eating habits; at school, Glynda lamented, she'd usually get made fun of unless she caught herself in time.

Ruby frowned at the sandwich until Glynda cut the crust off, and then she picked it up in both hands and slowly gnawed at it. She occasionally used both her hands to pick up her glass of milk to wash down her bites. After she finished the sandwich and the milk and even the cookie, she completely ignored the bowl of diced vegetables.

Glynda took a moment to swallow a cheekful of the vegetables she'd made for herself before taking matters into her own hands.

"C'mon, Ruby," Glynda said, "You need to eat vegetables to avoid getting horrible malnutrition disorders."

Ruby bit her cheek and turned away.

Glynda picked up Ruby's spoon and shoveled a pile of vegetables cubes on it. "Here comes the choo-choo~" Glynda lilted, lifting the spoon.

Ruby folded her arms.

Glynda made ever more elaborate train noises as she waved the spoon around. Later, at places where she needed to retain dignity, she would recall this moment with horrible, horrible shame.

Ruby reluctantly opened her mouth, eyes closed tight and arms folded even tighter, and ate the spoon of diced vegetables. The train was only five spoonfuls long, and by the final car, Ruby wasn't throwing a fit about them.

It was probably a good thing Glynda didn't mention the vegetables had broccoli in them.

* * *

"So when's your bedtime?" Glynda asked at some point during dinner.

"Never," Ruby said.

Glynda's face flattened. "Really."

Ruby closed her eyes and straightened her back. "I'm allowed to stay up forever," she explained, "Because my parents trust me enough to manage my own sleep routine, knowing that I'm responsible if staying up too late negatively impacts my life."

Glynda scrunched her face. Dang, that was better than _she_ got.

"And besides," Ruby whispered, "I can't go to sleep because the bedmonster wants to grab my legs."

Glynda kept a straight face, only barely. "The bedmonster?"

"It's," Ruby pontificated, "like a giant wolf with a skull for a head."

"Like a cubone?"

"No, the skull has glowing red bits. "

"Very well," Glynda stood up, "I will go and slay the bedmonster, restoring your restful nights.

"Noooo!" Ruby grabbed onto Glynda's skirt, "I don't want you to get eaten!"

Glynda ruffled Ruby's hair. "You don't think a high schooler like me can't kill a simple bedmonster?" Glynda pouted theatrically. "That makes me sad."

"But-," Ruby began. Her face was a horrible contortion of worry.

"I'll be right back," Glynda said.

"Glynda noooo!" Ruby reached out in futility.

Glynda went back into Ruby's room and turned on the lights. She waited until she heard Ruby walk right outside the room; Glynda caught the red hoodie in the corner of her eye.

Glynda pulled out her phone and searched for a youtube clip with monster noises, and then she put on a little show; there was wailing and yelling and some references to movies she didn't expect Ruby to get. And she did step on a LEGO brand construction block piece during the performance, so she did sustain some battle damage.

When Glynda returned to the hallway, triumphantly, her hair a little mussed up and her glasses a bit askew and only the slightest hint of a limp, Ruby was wringing her little hands.

"Glynda!" Ruby ran towards her babysitter and wrapped her arms around the older girl's leg. "You're so brave," Ruby said.

Glynda gave an incredulous smirk to the wall. "You bet I am," she stated. It almost didn't feel like a lie. She kneeled down. "So now you can go to bed."

"But I'm not sleepy!"

"Well you have to go to bed sometime," Glynda said. She picked up her charge.

"No I don't! We can play more!" Ruby tried to escape from Glynda's grip.

"I think I'm too tired to play," Glynda gave a theatrical yawn.

"Well, then," Ruby bit her cheek, "We can do something more passive! I have a bunch of cartoons!"

Ruby leaped from Glynda's arms and down the hallway.

Glynda was conflicted; she liked to think she'd be the kind of sitter who insisted on doing the responsible thing and sending Ruby to bed. But then again, what was the expected level of responsibility in this household? Was Ruby really telling the truth about being able to stay up forever?

And, Glynda noted with some chagrin, she usually never got to stay up late watching cartoons. So maybe she just took a liiittle longer walking to the living room than a fully responsible person would have done.

And when she found that Ruby had already turned on the TV and slid in a DVD and set the volume to medium-low so not to wake the sleepy world, Glynda just took the seat Ruby set up for her next to her charge. Ruby stretched back across Glynda's lap once they'd started.

Ruby sang along with the title songs- quietly for the first episode, but louder on subsequent ones until, by the fifth one, she stood up and did the accompanying dance as well. Glynda applauded the performance.

And by the seventh episode, Ruby was nodding off. By the ninth episode, Glynda was as well.

* * *

A door creaked open, the sound piercing through Glynda's veil of lethargy.

Glynda blinked. Had she been asleep?

The television was on- on a title screen, though. The current disk had finished its playthrough. Cool menu screen though.

"Hello?" whispered an adult. It was Summer, in her doctor's uniform; labcoat and stethoscope. Her hair was more mused up and her eye bags were more pronounced.

Glynda rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked around for a clock- 12:45. Summer was almost an hour late.

Ruby was snuggled up to her side, her face content, drooling a little onto Glynda's side, with a little more cookie crumbs around her mouth than Glynda remembered.

Summer picked up her daughter and lay her over her shoulder. Ruby awoke just enough to grab onto Glynda's shirt, reflexively. Summer gently unfolded Ruby's little hand.

"Hey Ruby," Summer rocked her daughter just a little.

"Mommy mommy," Ruby rubbed her eyes, "Can Glynda babysit again? Can she?" she said sleepily.

Summer scrunched her mouth. "If she wants to." She turned to Glynda, a little worried, a little hopeful. "You want to make this a regular thing?"

Glynda looked to Ruby, and then to Summer, and then thought of the double overtime clause in Ozpin's babysitting contracts, with an extra double for after-midnight sitting. "I'd love to," Glynda said.

"Yay!" Ruby said as excitedly as her dreary voice allowed.

Ruby smiled as she fell asleep.


	2. A Poorly Defined Notion of Infinity

RWBY and all associated characters are creations of Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum, may he rest in peace.

Bears are, depending on where you live, recognized as being creations of either Evolution or God.

I guarantee no expertise in babysitting, math, children, the correct way to refer to LEGO brand interlocking construction blocks, bears, teenage anxieties, or siblings.

However, I am trying to be sensitive about disabilities without making them the defining aspect of a disabed character (even if Glynda here has a little trouble with it at first), and I hope I don't offend anyone. I recognize that some disabled readers might not find their experiences perfectly represented here, and I welcome any corrections.

* * *

Glynda found herself embarrassingly excited when she got the text, right after school, that meant she had a gig at the Rose household that very next day. Ozpin had smirked an untrustworthy smirk when Glynda asked to be put down as a regular sitter for the Rose residence and, hey, as a bonus, Glynda now had an excuse for when all the weird kids asked her to join their weird afterschool clubs.

As she pulled up to the immaculate house, and trudged up to the front door, Glynda took a moment to brush off her business dress and adjust her glasses and look professional.

And when she rang the doorbell and an unfamiliar voice beckoned her in, Glynda realized that she still hadn't done any background research on the family.

"Hello-" Glynda said as she opened the door.

Getting up from the couch, in a messy tank top and some pajama shorts, with a huge unkempt mop of black hair and armful of tattoos, was a tall, muscular woman. She rubbed her eyes and yawned a huge yawn.

"Shizz, is it 4:00 already?" she said, "I wanted to be early for this-"

She rubbed the rest of her face with the palm of her left hand and held out her right. "Hey, I'm Raven. I think I saw you asleep on our couch when Yang and I got home last night."

"uhhh," Glynda shook the offered hand. "Ok, Yeah. Nice to meet you." Glynda glanced around. "So where's Summer?"

"Off saving lives, probably," Raven smiled. "So I take it you're the babysitter Ruby wanted?"

"I- yes." Glynda stated. "I hope so, I mean. If not, that means I have competition."

Raven smirked a bit. She suddenly patted her pants and pulled out her wallet. "So do we negotiate price now or..."

"No, the service should have had that arranged." Glynda said. She tapped her phone. "I was also told to tell people that we have an app now, because everyone does."

"Oh, awesome." Raven looked to the stairwell and pointed to Glynda and scrunched her face to the side. "So I need to get dressed for a job interview, brb."

Glynda smiled as the adult left the room. Well, this was probably just as new and different and awkward as yesterday-

But then a familiar figure bounded out from the kitchen, in different leggings but the same oversized red hoodie she'd worn all day yesterday. Glynda smiled but didn't get the chance to say anything before her charge did.

"Glynda!" squeaked Ruby. She ran up and hugged her babysitter. She started climbing up the teenager and Glynda would only realize a minute later.

"Aw," Glynda said as she rubbed Ruby's head. "Hello again-"

And then a child with a wild mop of blond hair skidded into the hallway.

She had one arm; her right one ended right above the elbow.

She had purple eyes and a recalcitrant grin and was wearing a t-shirt with a grown-up band on it.

She had one arm; Glynda could see some twists of ungrown fingers contorted at the edges of her stump.

She had one-

Glynda shook her head and made eye contact. "Oh. Um. hi." She stopped herself from facepalming.

"So you're the babysitter," The one-armed child chided, "I can't say I see what Ruby sees in you."

"Uhh," Glynda began. Then she realized she'd been insulted. "Hey! I'll have you know I'm slated to be valedictorian next year."

"Uh-huh," the blonde nodded condescendingly. "Anything else?"

Glynda would later lie awake in her bed remembering these words and have a little existential crisis, wondering if there was anything else important through which she defined her life. Now, she just said, "What do you care anyway? I'm still the babysitter."

The blonde scrunched her face to the side. "I'm just wonderin' what my sis saw in ya. Ruby even bathed for today, and she'd just had a bath last month-"

"Yaaaannngg!" Ruby whined. Glynda turned to her charge, in left arm and realized that oh, she was carrying her now. When did that happen?

Ruby puffed out her cheek. "You can't tell her that!" she said to Yang. Then she turned back to Glynda, all evidence of her previous distress gone from her face. "Oh!" Ruby said, "Glynda, this is my sister, Yang!"

Yang held out her stump. "Yang Xiao-Long, pleased ta meecha."

Glynda probably stared at the offered half-limb too long, before she took it and shook. "Um. Ok. Cool, yeah."

Yang smirked mischievously. "Watcha staring at?"

"I-I just – I wasn't-" Glynda said, "It's just that you are the least Chinese-looking kid I have ever seen."

Yang looked surprise. "Oh? I've never got that before."

"So were you adopt-"

"I'M NOT ADOPTED!" Yang bellowed.

"Sorry!" Glynda said, "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it-"

Yang's face instantly shifted back to her original mischievous grin. "'s 'k. So the deal is; Raven's my mom, and Summer's Ruby's mom, but now both of them are both our moms."

Glynda cleared her throat.

Two women getting married-

Well, re-married. Of course. They had kids from their previous relationship, and brought them with them into the new one when they-

Wow. Two women getting married-

Of course, Glynda wasn't going to judge or anything- not for grown-ups doing their grown-up best to follow their hearts, but still, two women-

Glynda cleared her throat again, and realized that both her charges were staring at her expectantly. Glynda decided not to ask any followup questions about their family life.

"So how old are you?" Glynda asked Yang, "Ten?"

"Ten and 485/876th." Yang smiled triumphantly. She tucked her hand under her stump.

And then Raven walked back into the room, in a business casual blouse and skirt (not as well dressed as Glynda, but still a grand improvement over her first impression), her posture a little more professional and her hair a little less messy. That was apparently the cue for Ruby to extract herself from Glynda's arm and follow Yang out of the room. When Yang walked, every third or so step was a tiny hop with both feet that landed with a loud ground-shaking impact.

Raven rubbed Yang's head as the child ran past. She then turned to speak to Glynda.

"Uh," Raven said, scratching behind her head and looking at the wall. "I know we just met, but I can't help but notice that your car is reasonably nice..."

"You mean my '04 Honda Accord?" Glynda tilted her head to the side. Nobody every complimented her about her parent's old car (though Raven's compliment had been qualified, so maybe she could count it just as a half-compliment), and she had been hoping her previous internship would let her get one of the fancy ones the company was working on.

"I mean, I drive a van and it's kind of a mess, and I kind of want to make a good impression today-" Raven said.

Yang reentered the room, skidded to a halt in between them. "Mom!" she said, jingling some keys in her hand, "You can borrow our extra car!"

Relief blanketed Raven's face. "Oh, sweet." She turned to Glynda and smiled, "Never-mind what I just said."

Raven turned to Yang and knelt down and gave a big hug to her daughter.

"You can do it mom," Yang said, eyes closed and arm wrapped around her mother's shoulders, "I believe in you!"

"Aww," Raven ruffled Yang's head. Yang smiled from ear to ear with closed eyes. "And always remember, I believe in you too."

"Transitive property of belief, yes."

They giggled.

Raven stood up and nodded one last time to Glynda. She opened the door and, right before she left, she gave a salute to Ruby. Ruby returned it.

The door creaked closed.

"So," Glynda said, "What do you want to do for the next," Glynda checked her watch, "Five hours and forty five minutes?"

"Ohh ooh!" Yang said, "Since she's not here, let's go explore my mom's van!"

"Nooo!" Ruby said, shaking Glynda as best her little arms could. "Glynda doesn't want to look at your mom's weird weeaboo shizz, Yang!" Ruby said.

"Yeah, well, _you're_ weird," Yang stuck her tongue out at her sister.

"No _you're_ weird!"

"You're weird times infinity!"

Ruby's face devolved into a wobbly-mouthed cry before Glynda patted her charge's head to calm her down.

Ruby looked up at Glynda, eyes sparkling, "We're supposed to play blocks together! C'mon!"

Ruby pulled on Glynda's arm.

"What about Yang?"

"She does stuff on her own all the time," Ruby said. She was now leaned at 45 degrees from the ground, pulling on Glynda's arm with all her weight. Glynda had shifted her feet to hold her charge up.

"I'd feel better if I was actually supervising her," Glynda said.

Ruby pouted but relented, and they set up in Ruby's bedroom. Glynda hung her formal coat along a nearby chair, and Yang brought a teddy bear and a book and sat in the corner, seemingly contented. She occasionally glanced at Glynda and Ruby as they set up various Lego brand interlocking block constructions.

* * *

 _General Glynda surveyed her troops. Her crusade against the fiendish rogue Sankt-Kaiser Rose was continuing; her troop disposition had switched out, as a force composed of airborn wizard children, ewoks, and treasure hunters (from both the original series and the recent reboot) and would be better equipped to manage during this assault-_

 _-into a magical forest/jungle that had, like, six different types of trees that grew in mutually exclusive climates. But once the General secured this land, its forage-able bounty of coconuts, chocolate, pine cones and Christmas presents would sustain her troops for the next few forays into the Sankt-Kaiser's territory._

 _The Kaiser herself still had her custom harvester, which had been upgraded with immunity shields and air-conditioning, and was accompanied with her elite force of Imperial walkers and mining equipment and, as always, the firetruck (to prevent forest fires, probably), prepared to 'scorched earth' the forest if they were to lose. Glynda would have to strategically choose her targets in the initial foray or any victory she might earn would turn out Pyrrhic..._

General Glynda's last wizard child managed to hit the Sankt-Kaiser's final AT-ST with a jelly-leg curse and topple it. Her adventurers stared down the Kaiser's last miners; It was down to the final duel- that would decide the fate of the jungle-

 _And then a bear appeared, sending the mecha and soviet-era jungle vehicles flying._

 _"Groaaworahrawrr!" growled the bear._

* * *

"Yang!" Ruby said, her eyes bulging and her cheek puffed out, "You can't bring your dumb bears into our Lego war!"

"Can too!" Yang said, "Barry's a brown bear, and they live in the forest! Besides," Yang stuck out her tongue, "Bears are the greatest!"

"No, bears are dumb!"

"You're dumb!"

"You're dumb times infinity!" Ruby said.

"You're dumb times the infinite sum of all numbers between zero and infinity!"

Ruby's face started to devolve into a teary, wobbly-mouthed cry but then shifted into an angry expression. Ruby stood up and waddled over and picked up the bear by the head threw it against the wall.

"Hey!" Yang got up and shoved Ruby.

Ruby fell backwards, her bottom hitting to the ground with a resounding thump.

There was a horrible moment of silence, and then Ruby's face devolved into tears and mucus, then she started crying that piercing child's cry.

Glynda rushed over and tucked Ruby into her elbow and sang an impromptu song to sooth her charge.

Or at least, she sang the best soothing song she could come up with on the spot. She mostly said 'please stop crying' to various tunes and cadences until the crying child did so.

Ruby ran out of sobs and just looked forlornly at Glynda for a moment.

Glynda cleared her throat and looked at the problem sister. "Yang," Glynda said, "That was not appropriate."

"She threw Barry Baker Bear!"

"You should have used your words," Glynda said.

"Fine!" Yang said, "You're dumb, Ruby!"

"No you're dumb!" Ruby said, curling up in Glynda's arms.

Glynda cleared her throat again, thus time louder. "I meant, you should have said something constructive about your feelings."

Yang tucked her hand under her armpit. "Ruby's not doing that."

"You're the older sister." Glynda said with her eyes closed. "How old did you say you are you again?"

"Ten and 1213/2190. " Yang mumbled.

"And Ruby's only Eight and a half."

"Eight and 2623/4380..." Yang mumbled.

"See you're almost two years older than her," Glynda said, "So you should be the one to realize how your actions affect other people."

Yang grumbled, and then walked up to the pair.

"You really hurt my feelings Ruby," Yang mumbled.

Ruby mumbled something as well.

Glynda turned to the child in her lap. "So do you accept her apology, Ruby?"

"I guess." Ruby pouted.

"Hey," Glynda said, rocking her knee a little to jostle the girl she was holding, "I think Yang put her bear in our fight because she's feeling a little left out. How about we find something you both want to do?"

Ruby wiped her last few tears on the wrists of her oversized hoodie and nodded reluctantly.

* * *

Yang led the group into her bedroom, and Glynda mused that if Ruby's bedroom was a LEGO brand interlocking construction brick museum, Yang's was one for bears.

There were several bookshelves with books with bears on them, and there were posters of various cartoon bears, and there was a mattress leaned sideways against the wall, with a small circle of blankets with eight or nine or eleven huge bears, which apparently was what Yang used as a bed.

And also, like, a gazillion stuffed animal bears lying around just wherever. Yang started picking them up and introducing them to Glynda. There was Flopsy, who lost his leg in a motorcyle accident, and Bearbera, who was deaf from birth, and Browbear, who was a thalidomide baby, and Grizzback, who was paralyzed from the waste down, and Beartoldt, who had polio.

"And this is Barry Baker Bear's wife: Strawbarry." Yang hefted a bear with a cannula, "She has acute asthma. And their kids; Bluebarry, who has arrhythmia, and Boisenbarry, who has Multiple Sclerosiseseses, and Libarry, who's had Wernicke's aphasia."

"So uh," Glynda said, looking at the stuffed animal Yang had brought into Ruby's room, "What's wron- I mean! What's different about Barry the Baker Bear?"

Yang looked askance twice and leaned in, beckoning Glynda to do so as well.

"He has lung cancer, but we don't talk about it," Yang whispered.

Oh. Ahahaa. Glynda looked closer and saw three green dots on the bear's chest.

"Thanks for introducing me to all your friends," Glynda said.

Yang smiled her biggest smile. "Yeah! They're beary pleased to meet you too!"

Glynda groaned, but only on the inside.

Ruby was in the corner looking only slightly cross.

"Ruby, did you want to meet all of the bears?" Glynda said

Ruby tucked her hands into her armpits. "I already met them."

Ahaha.

Glynda looked around the room. One of the few non-bear themed items in the room was a punching bag.

"Yeah," Yang said when asked about it, "Raven thinks it'd be a good idea to join Braziallian Jiu Jitsu when I get to sixth grade, because there's some other people with missing limbs doing it and the local gym doesn't hold anyone back."

"Oh, ok, cool." Glynda said. She figeted for a moment and weighed her curiosity against her self-image of a perfectly polite babysitter. "So, uh, is it okay if I ask about your arm?"

Ruby looked mortified from her corner, but Yang just smirked and exhaled quickly through her nose.

"Birth defect," Yang said and shrugged, "It doesn't really affect me, except sometimes I have trouble opening things and need to use my teeth to tie knots and buttons on clothes are hard I can't play some musical instruments and I can't count to six." Yang smiled her biggest smile.

"Oh. Ok. Yeah." Glynda said. "Wait-,"

"Raven made friends with various prosthesiseseses when she played around the country, but I don't like any of the arms she got me."

"I'm sure Raven is trying her best for you," Glynda said.

"Yeah, she's the best!" Yang said, "She buys me bear paraphernalia (bearaphernalia!) whenever she can," She said smugly, "She also got me a collection of bear cartoons, we can watch some if you want!" Yang pointed her stump at one side of the bookcases.

Glynda walked up to it and inspected the collection; there was _Brother Bear_ , _Polar Bear Cafe Seasons 1-2_ , _Kung Fu Panda 2_ , _Care Bears 2: A New Generation_ , _Pooh's Grand Adventure: the Search for Christopher Robin_ , _Yurikuma Arashi_ , _Vinni Pukh_ , and _We Bare Bears, Season 1_.

"I also have some live action stuff too, for when I'm feeling growed up." Yang said.

In the live action section, there was _Paddington_ , _Ted_ , _Grizzly_ , and _Failed WWII Science Experiments Vol. 6: Russian Ballistic Para-trooping Bears_.

"And Raven gets me books too! Ruby reads them to me sometimes," Yang said. She pointed to the book section.

Glynda ran her hands along the spines of several really nice looking books; with fancy covers and stuff; a copy of the original _Winnie the Pooh_ , an illustrated _Goldilocks and the Three Bears_ , and also _The Princess and Mister Whiffle_ , and _Beowulf_.

"Why do you have a Nordic saga here?" Glynda said, "Wasn't Beowulf like a wolf guy-"

"No," Yang said, suddenly exasperated, "'Beowulf' means bear! It's a- a- Ruby, what was it?"

"A 'kenning'," Ruby said, suddenly in lecture mode again, "It's a figurative compound word commonly found in norse and anglo-saxton poetry. 'Beowulf' translates as 'bee-wolf', which is a wolf that eats bees; a bear."

"Yeah," Yang stuck her tongue out, "Beowulf isn't a wolf, silly."

"Unless it's, like, a wolf that literally eats bees. Or some Moreau-ian bee/wolf hybrid," Ruby mumbled.

"Oh. Ok."

Glynda glanced towards Ruby, who was still pouting in the corner with her arms crossed and staring at the wall and not offering to play with anything.

Glynda sat down on a chair and picked up the nearest bear; the bear who had polio but wanted to be a dancer, what did Yang name him?

The stuffed animal was just the right size for Glynda to put a hand around each of its arms and then squish the fluff to make it flail its arms wildly, or press the back of the bears neck to make its head nod up or down.

Glynda made the bear dance, making a series of 'da ta da' noises under her breath as she did. Later, she'd be really embarrassed about it, but for the ten or so minutes she did so, she helped the bear dance and Ruby and Yang looked on in complete wonder.

Glynda concluded the bear's dance and made its arms flop in an elaborate bow. Ruby and Yang applauded. Glynda was afraid she'd have to do something else to break the awkward silence but then Ruby walked up to her sister.

"Sorry I left you out of the Lego battle, sis," Ruby mumbled.

Yang grinned an accepting grin. "Eh. Bears are better anyways."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "You wanna bet?"

* * *

 _General Glynda and Sankt-Kaiser Ruby nodded solemnly at each other. They decided to put aside their differences for just this campaign-_

 _To launch a crippling blitzkrieg against the brutish Barbearian (Bearbearian?) invasion that threatened them both, and to take out the Bear Grand Vizier (Grand Vizi-bear?) Yang Xaio-Long._

"'Vizier' is only two syllables," Glynda said.

Yang stuck her tongue out. "But the pun only works if I pronounce it Viz-i-ier.

Yang had procured a pair of bear ears and a bear glove for her hand.

"I guess I figured you'd want to be the bear princess," Glynda said.

"Naw," Ruby said, "We have a friend whoze claimed priority as princess in all our make-believe games."

"But she's not here right now," Glynda pointed out.

Ruby and Yang shared a look. "It'd still feel weird," Yang said.

Glynda shrugged.

 _Currently, they were deep in Bear Kingdom territory; low on troops but high in spirit. Glynda could only bring a few wizard children and treasure hunters, while Sank-Kaiser Ruby had her firetruck and mechs and her personal combine harvester, but she feared its laser and mustard immunity would serve redundant against their foes; the Bearserkers, the Cybears, the Bearatroopers, and, most deadly of all, the Paratrooping Cybearserkers._

 _"I'll give you a chance to surrender," The Grand Vizier said, hefting her arm-cannon, "Before things get too... grizzly."_

* * *

A _fter a long fight with massive casualties on both sides (bear carcasses lay amid shattered blocks and bisected minifigs), General Glynda and Sankt-Kaiser Ruby had cornered the Bear Vizier herself._

 _"Surrender, Grand Vizi-bear," the General said, "Or the Kaiser will vaporize your remaining bears!"_

 _"We of plush will never bow before the plastic! Do your worst!"_

 _"Then I give the order, Kaiser," Glynda lowered her sabre at their mutual enemy._

 _"I'm sorry, my dear," the Sankt-Kaiser said to the General, "But you know what they say about love and war."_

 _And then Ruby's army fired on Glynda._

"Ruby!" Glynda said, "You can't switch sides in the middle of a battle!

Yang hid her giggles under her fingertips. Ruby was standing up on the nearby bed, fists on her hips, laughing triumphantly. "Sure I can! It's opportunistic treason; once you're weakened, I sweep in and eliminate both my enemies! Ahahahahaha!"

Ruby continued to laugh manically. Glynda bit her cheek as her cheeks reddened in indignation.

Glynda jumped into a tackle. She was careful to grab her charge's head first and hold it steady to prevent any whiplash during the crash. Glynda twisted so that she'd break Ruby's fall and held her charge in her grip.

Ruby squeaked and was still for just a moment before she laughed and struggled and utterly failed to escape from Glynda's grasp.

"Yang!" Glynda said from the ground. Yang stood at attention. "Finishing move: Tickle attack!"

"Yes ma'am!" Yang said. She ran up to her sister and poked the youngest girl's stomach.

"No!" Ruby managed to say between laughs, equal parts mirth and horror, "Nooooooooooooo!"

Yang pulled up Ruby's hoodie and blew a resounding raspberry on her sister's stomach. Ruby squealed some more, and eventually the three of them were laughing too hard to do anything but laugh even harder.

* * *

And then it was time for dinner. Which was good, because Glynda had just said 'bear' so many times it was beginning to lose its meaning in her head, and afterward had laughed so much her diaphragm felt sore.

Yang ran out the door and down the stairs immediately after dinner time was declared, and Glynda took the time to fix Ruby's hoodie and hair. Ruby smiled at her sheepishly.

Glynda carried Ruby to the kitchen and deposited her charge in a nearby chair. Yang was sitting in front of the box that shot microwaves at food, sitting on her stool the same way the lid sat on a kettle of boiling water; shakily, and for a moment every few seconds, not at all. The wild child kicked her legs and bounced and when the box beeped the blonde pulled out-

A large bowl of broccoli. Yang threw a stalk into her mouth.

"I love broccoli!" Yang cackled. She stuffed a stalk into her mouth and chewed it with her mouth open.

Ruby pouted. "Broccoli's gross!"

"You just think that 'cause you're dumb!" Yang said amid bites. "Summer loves that I eat healthier than you!"

Ruby puffed up her cheek again. "Or you just like gross broccoli 'cause you're gross!"

"No, you're gross!'

"You're gross times the umm, infinite, uh" Ruby began.

"-sum of all numbers between-" Glynda helped.

"- all numbers between one and infinity!" Ruby finished triumphantly.

Without looking at each other, both of them still staring at Yang, Glynda and Ruby fist-bumped.

But Yang just smirked. "Well you're both gross times the uncountably infinite sum of all real and complex numbers between zero and infinity!"

Ruby's face devolved into a wobbly-mouthed cry again. Glynda resisted to urge to giggle.

Yang then started throwing broccoli at her sister.

Ruby ducked and ran behind her sitter. "Glynda save me!" she cried.

Glynda scrunched her face. "Ruby," she began, as gently as she could. She patted Ruby's shoulder. "Broccoli isn't that bad-"

"I've been betrayed!" Ruby jumped away. "This is for my actions at the battle of Bear Mountain, isn't it?" Ruby pouted. Some broccoli landed on her head.

"No-"

"Oh woe! Turnabout is true fair play!" And Ruby ran out of the room.

"Ahahahaha!" Yang grabbed the bowl of microwaved broccoli, tucking it between her stump and her side, and she ran after her sister, throwing pieces of vegetable after her.

"Don't play with your food!" Glynda yelled after them.

Ruby had pieces of broccoli in her hair as she ran out of eyesight.

Yang started running after her, but Glynda intercepted the older sister with an arm around the waist.

"What are you doing?" Glynda said, "I thought you were friends after the tickle fight?"

Yang stuck out her tongue. "We're sisters. We're perpetually in a superposition of 'BFF' and 'archnemisis' (archnemisisters!)."

Glynda made the most exasperated expression.

* * *

As it turned out, Ruby locked herself in the bathroom.

After knocking and trying the door, Glynda sat down, her back against the door. Yang was jumping around somewhere; Glynda could feel the thumping through the ground.

"Ruby," Glynda said. She stuffed a stalk of broccoli in her mouth and chewed enough to talk normally. "Please come out. We're eating all the broccoli, so there won't be any left for you."

"Are you done eating it all?"

Glynda looked at her bowl. "Not yet."

"Then I'm staying here." Ruby said through the door. Glynda could imagine Ruby's pout and folded arms.

"Well what happens if one of us has to use the bathroom?" Glynda asked.

There was a moment of silence.

"Do you have to use the bathroom _now?"_

Glynda paused chewing. The answer was; kind of.

"What happens if I say yes?" Glynda asked.

"Then Yang will show you the bathroom in the garage, or the master bedroom (even though we're not supposed to go in there)."

Glynda ate another stalk of her broccoli. Another thump resounded through the ground.

"Do you want to know what I do when I'm afraid of something?" she offered to the door.

"What?" Ruby's voice said, "But you're fearless! You killed the bedmonster!"

"Naw, bedmonsters are entry level challenges for teenagers," Glynda said. She took a a breath, and almost reconsidered but didn't, and she confessed some of her fears- worries about her future, anxieties about her past. She worried that she wasn't close enough to the people that she called friends and maybe they were all just humoring her or that she wasn't empathetic enough, or that maybe they were just being friends with her because they wanted a link with someone who was likely to be successful. She worried she wasn't open enough about her feelings to make true friends, and that maybe she wasn't sure herself what she wanted out of life, and would never be happy because of such.

And her solution, Glynda said, was to think of the kind of person she wanted to be; someone who wouldn't be affected by what other people thought and hoped for the best in everyone, and try to be that person as best she could. And she asked if Ruby could try to do so as well.

Ruby opened the door. The parts around her eyes were still a little wet.

"I believe in your courage, Glynda," Ruby said, "Taiyang always says that courage is not about not having fear, but facing it."

"Oh," Glynda said. She was about to ask a follow up question- like was 'Taiyang' Yang's full name? And if so, was Ruby short for like Rubillese or something- but then Ruby held out her hand.

"Gimme a broccoli," Ruby mumbled.

She stared at the stalk and then with trembling fingers brought it to her mouth. She closed her eyes and placed the vegetable on her tongue and took a bite. She ground it with her teeth once, then twice, then three times, and then she swallowed and opened her eyes.

"Was that so bad?" Glynda said.

Ruby cogitated for a moment. "If I say 'no', do I have to eat more broccoli?"

Glynda chuckled.

* * *

Glynda brought Ruby and her empty bowl back to the kitchen. Yang had pulled out some potato wedges, and when Glynda looked in the fridge to get the milk for her charges, she saw the three microwave dinners that Raven had left out for them, with encouraging sticky-notes on some of them. Oh, so they were supposed to eat that stuff? Glynda shrugged; at least a little thought was given to what they'd eat tonight. Unlike last night, but eh.

"Can I have a cookie since I ate that broccoli?" Ruby asked with wide eyes. Glynda coughed and tried to resist.

"Nnnyeeeennn- ok fine, but just one." Glynda turned to Yang. "Did you want one too?"

Yang tried to look like she was too adult to enjoy cookies, but then she shrugged. "I guess."

So Glynda retrieved three cookies from the pantry, and the three of them enjoyed them with their milk. Glynda made the mistake of finishing hers too fast. Ruby and Yang laughed at her for it.

And afterwards, they had some time to eat up before either of the moms got home. Glynda suggested the television, as it was the least exhausting activity she could think of.

"Ooh," Yang said, "Ruby loves the World War II science dvd I have!"

"Yeah!" Ruby said.

"Uhh," Glynda said. She rubbed the back of her head. "I kind of get enough of that at school, so..."

Ruby's eyes narrowed and she smirked a smug smirk. "Oh? I thought you would have grown up tastes."

Glynda puffed out her cheek. "What I meant was- If you want to watch cartoons, then I guess I have no choice but to watch them with you."

Ruby stared at Glynda for a second, then she laughed. "So let's watch cartoons!"

"Haha," Yang said, "You two are babies."

 _"You're_ a baby!" Ruby said.

Yang stuck out her tongue. "You're a baby times the infinite-"

"Oh yeah?" Glynda interjected, kneeling behind Ruby in solidarity, "You're a baby times the infinite sum of all real and complex numbers between _negative_ infinity and infinity!"

Yang stuck out her tongue. "Well joke's on you, because that's a telescoping sum of linked pairs that adds to zero."

Ruby's face devolved into a wobbly-mouthed cry. Glynda opened and closed her mouth a few times. "I- I-"

"Babysitter says I'm zero baby, which makes me an adult!" Yang yelled triumphantly as she left the room.

"Glynda," Ruby whined and shook the teenager, "Why would you say that?"

"I didn't- I didn't mean to!" Glynda cried out to the ceiling. And Ozpin was convinced they'd never use math in real life.

Ruby laughed though, and they set up some pillows and blankets on the couch while Yang retrieved one of her DVDs.

* * *

And then it was 10:00 PM. Glynda was starting to feel groggy now, because she hadn't had a lot of sleep the previous night.

Dr. Rose came in, startling the sitter to wakedness.

"Hello mommy!" Ruby said. She waved from Glynda's lap.

Summer froze for a moment, surveying the three people sitting on her couch watching cartoons.

"What are you doing here?" Summer asked Glynda.

"Uhh," Glynda said. She moved Ruby off her lap and brushed herself off as she stood up. "Babysitting your kids?"

"What happened to Raven-"

"That's my name don't wear it out!" Raven yelled, suddenly sliding into the living room. "I thought that was your car I was following, Summy-"

Summer turned to the taller woman, her hands on her hips. "I thought you said you'd watch the kids today."

"I did! Right before I had to go-"

"You left the kids alone?"

Raven pointed a finger up in front of her. "With their favorite babysitter. So win-win."

"She's been here once!"

"So one for one," Raven smirked.

Summer looked exasperated and she stepped into Raven's personal space. She stared down the black-haired woman, even though she only came up to Raven's shoulders.

"You're still so irresponsible!" Summer spat.

"Am not! I hired a babysitter."

"You said you'd watch the kids," Summer said. Her eyes narrowed. "You _lied_ to me."

Raven shrugged apologetically, "I'll make it up to you," Raven said.

"Oh? How are-"

Raven leaned down and she touched Summer's chin to bring her mouth up and then she smooched the doctor, on the face.

Summer emitted a surprised sound and then closed her eyes and ran both her hand's through Raven's hair.

"Oh wow," Glynda said. She turned to the wall and bit a knuckle.

"Go mom!" Yang said.

Ruby made some mumble sounds.

"So, uh-" Glynda turned back to where the two women were being... affectionate...

…

…

-Affectionate with each other, and she held out her finger, waiting for a good moment to interrupt.

It took a while.

But then Summer broke off from the kiss. Glynda almost got a word in.

"I'm not done with you yet," Summer said to Raven, her face flushed and lips trembling.

And Ruby must have inherited her ability to jump into people's arms from her mother because Summer jumped into Raven's arms and started making out from the high ground this time, and Raven carried the smaller woman up the stairs and into the master bedroom.

Glynda tried to remember what she had been doing, before the two women started …

Well, it wasn't any of her business what the parents got up. If they were... smooching...

…

…

-Smooching or whatever! It was completely fine. Didn't affect Glynda at all. In fact, if they were going to be longer than they anticipated, she got paid more. Overtime, maybe, though maybe there was a legal requirement for that? She'd ask Ozpin about it.

"S-so," the sitter turned to her charges. "I guess we can watch some more cartoons or something?"

Yang grinned mischievously. "Yeah, more bear cartoons! I've got one I think you'll like, Glynda," She said with a tone of voice that matched her grin. She ran to her room to get a new dvd.

Ruby and Yang knew the theme song to this one, and they jumped into the living area to dance around as they did so. Then they adjourned to the couch.

"This is pretty funny," Glynda commented, trying not to listen for sounds coming from up the stairs.

"Yeah, it's the second best bear cartoon originally based on a comic to premier in 2015," Yang said, cuddling up with a pillow.

* * *

They got through four episodes of _We Bare Bears_ when noises from the stairway startled Glynda back to full wakefulness.

She extracted herself from the blankets and sleepy children and crept over to the kitchen and the recipient quiet, nighttime cooking noises and soft yellow light.

Summer was wearing the button-down shirt Raven had been wearing, and Raven was wearing some sort of kimono or yukata- or maybe just a Japanese-themed bathrobe. The two moms were drinking coffee, sending the occasional bashful glance or giggle to each other. Neither of them were wearing pants.

Below Glynda, Ruby and Yang appeared and were peaking into the kitchen as well.

The sitter decided to step into the kitchen, hesitantly, legs stiff and hands awkward. She cleared her throat. "So I hope it's not a bad time-"

"Ah shizz!" Summer sputtered, dribbling some coffee down her chin, "You're still here! I have kids!"

"Ah," Glynda tried to figure out how to explain the concept of kids.

"Ruby!" Summer called.

Ruby ran into the room. Summer bent down to catch Ruby in a hug.

"I'm sorry," Summer said, nuzzling her daughter's head, "Raven will be gone tomorrow so this won't happen again."

"Actually, I, uh," Raven said, "was actually wondering if I could move back in." She took a sip from her coffee.

There was a moment of abject silence.

"WHAT." Summer said. Ruby squeaked and stepped out of her mother's embrace.

"I- I just," Raven raised her hand defensively, "Y'know, thought I could help out with Ruby and Yang-"

"Oh, so _now_ you want a family," Summer shot. She stood up.

"Uh," Raven flashed her teeth at the wall and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah- that's what I'm getting at-"

"I distinctly remember you saying that 'kids were an albatross' and that you didn't want any." Summer made air quotes with her fingers. "That's why you left. That's why I had to raise _your_ kid for nine years!

"I-"

"We're not in college anymore, Raven!" Summer yelled, "I can't- We can't keep doing this with you-"

Raven put her coffee down and put her hands up in a 'calm down' gesture. "I- I know what you're saying-"

"You're not responsible! I couldn't leave you alone with the kids for _one afternoon_ without you bailing on them!"

"I know what you mean, yes, but I'm working on being responsible. I-I have a job now. A real one." Raven gulped to steel herself. "And I have some money saved up, and I haven't gotten drunk in six weeks, and I've been clean for a year-

"OH GREAT," Summer raised her hands and rolled her eyes. "Do that back in time eleven years and maybe Yang would have _two arms_ -"

"You- That's not fair-"

"It's extremely fair, and that's why you don't like it." Summer jabbed an accusing finger at Raven's chest, "Because you _left_ instead of sticking around to fix your mistake-"

"YANG'S NOT A MISTAKE!" Raven yelled, dropping her conciliatory demeanor.

Summer put a hand on her brow, "I didn't meant it like _that,_ you're twisting my words around-"

"A-Am I?" Raven said, her voice cracking slightly, "You- you know what Yang tells me? That she feels you treat Ruby better than her. That she doesn't think you respect her like you do with your _biological_ daughter!"

Doubt flickered across Summer's face. "T-that's not true."

"Do you know she's being bullied at school?"

"That's," Summer's face dropped an iota, "That's impossible-"

"How do you know?"

"How do you know? You've been all over the country!"

"I keep in touch! And I'm here when I can be-"

"Oh, yeah," Summer threw her hands up, "You get to stop by and be cool twice a year but when there's actual parenting that needs to be done you're off performing for the llama or other people _more important than your family_."

"I'm just saying that maybe you haven't been as attentive to Yang as she needs-"

"YOU DON'T GET TO CRITICIZE MY PARENTING!" Summer yelled.

Raven winced and she ducked down a little, "I- I know, but I'm just saying I can- I can help out a little..."

Summer exhaled long and loud and placed her palms on her eyes.

Raven fell to her knees. "Please, Summy," She tried to grab Summer's hand but Summer shook out of it. "I'm begging for forgiveness here-"

Summer closed her eyes and breathed. "I can't, Raven."

"Please, just give me a chance-"

"I told you no!"

Yang suddenly jumped into the room. "Don't be mean to Raven!" she said. She ran up to Summer, her little fist balled and her face in tears. Her voice was pained and vulnerable and she was trying to punch Summer's legs. "She's trying her hardest-"

"Raven only ever broke mommy's heart!" Ruby yelled. She ran between her sister and her mother and tried to intercept Yang's ineffectual blows.

The two moms glanced around for a moment as their kids fought before Glynda walked in and separated them. The kids struggled for just a moment before they gave up and sulked.

"Ahaha," Glynda said. She had no idea about anything.

"Ahaha," said Raven.

"Uh," Summer said to Glynda, "Do you think you could get them changed and their teeth brushed?"

Oh. Teeth brushing. That was what she forgot yesterday.

"Are you going to stop fighting?" Yang said, wiping tears off her face.

Summer glanced at Raven. Raven smiled sheepishly. "I think we can have a nice long discussion." Summer breathed. "I'll try not to lose my temper."

Raven's face lit up. Glynda nodded and smiled awkardly at three or five things in the room and led two glum children to the bathroom. Summer and Raven never raised their voices loud enough to be overheard from there, so hopefully things were working out.

* * *

Yang utterly resisted Glynda's offers to uncap her toothpaste for her; Yang got it eventually. Ruby though took Glynda up on the offer, and Glynda felt questionably deserving of the praise and thanks she received for removing the cap to a tube of toothpaste (Which Glynda noticed with some amusement was cookie dough flavored).

But aside from that, both Ruby and Yang were very glum as they brushed the alphabet and later left to their respective rooms change into their pajamas.

They met up in Ruby's room afterwards. Yang managed to wring her hand in itself as she worried on the bed.

Glynda wondered whether she should tell her that it was okay if parents fought and that they'd end up realizing they loved each other. It certainly wasn't true all the time-

"It's not fair," Yang said quietly. "Summer likes Ruby better, Uncle Qrow likes Ruby better, now even the babysitter likes Ruby better." Her nose twitched. "And now Summer wants to kick out the only person who likes me better."

Glynda was about to protest but, hmmm, it was sort of true.

Ruby looked on with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide. "Is that really how you feel, Yang?"

Yang bit her lip and her eyes watered and eventually she nodded at the wall.

Ruby extracted herself from Glynda's arms and walked over to hug her sister.

"I'm sorry," Ruby said. "I'll try harder to make sure everyone makes you feel special, and not in the bad kind of way."

"Ok," Yang hugged back. "Me too."

"I love you, sis." Ruby said.

"I love you times infinity," Yang said.

Ruby pouted and hugged harder. "I love you times the infinite sum of all real numbers between zero and infinity."

Yang smirked. "Well joke's on you, because all uncountably infinite sums are considered equal in size."

"What?" Glynda said, "So – so back when you- "

"Yeah, so we love each other equally?" Ruby puffed.

"No; I said mine first, so it has precedence in the temporal dimension." Yang grinned.

Glynda was too tired to think of whether that made sense or not.

* * *

Summer and Raven came back from the upstairs. Yang froze in mortification. Ruby turned to Glynda for reassurance, but Glynda just shrugged and scrunched her face.

Summer walked in front of the trio and breathed in. "Ok, so Raven's moving back in. On probation," she said.

Yang lit up. Ruby smiled at Yang's smile.

Glynda bit her cheek just a bit. "So I guess you won't be needing a babysitter then, with an extra person around and all..."

Summer opened her mouth but Raven said, "Well actually,-"

Summer shot a look at the taller woman. "Raven..."

"It's an afternoon job," Raven said at the wall, hand behind her head, "So I can pick the kids up from school if the district doesn't think my van's too suspicious but I'd have to leave soon after..."

Summer sighed loudly. Raven chuckled a bit.

"So how much do I owe you?" Summer said to Glynda.

Glynda tapped her phone a couple times. "Here's what the app says," she handed it to Summer with a wince.

But Summer didn't even flinch, though Raven raised her eyebrows as she pulled out her own wallet.

Summer handed over a stack of bills-

And Raven did as well.

"What are you doing, Raven?" Summer said.

"What? She babysat my kid too."

"Our kids," Summer shot, and afterwards grinned.

"Awww," Raven hugged Summer. Summer pushed her away after a moment, but in a half-playful sort of way. Glynda blushed at the wall.

Glynda coughed. "So I guess it's goodbye for the night," she said.

"Bye Glynda!" Ruby said, stifling a little yawn, "See you tomorrow?"

Glynda turned to the adults, who shrugged at each other.

"Yeah, we'll need a sitter then too," Summer said.

Glynda smiled. "Ok then."


	3. Green Shakes at McDonald's, pt 1

I guarantee no expertise in or even basic knowledge of babysitting, romance, the correct way to put the apostrophe in McDonald's restaurants, or math. Especially math.

However, I am trying to be as sensitive as possible about disability. Apologies if I offend, and I welcome any corrections.

I also do not endorse the consumption of any sort of food or food-like substance sold at the McDonald's restaurant chain. Use your best judgement when dining anywhere. But especially at McDonald's.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

Qrow Branwen leaned back in his office chair. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

It was the end of the day; the distant window down the hall let in the afternoon sunlight, though most of the time the fluorescent lights and desk lamps were enough to illuminate all the paperwork they had to do. It was Friday; half the staff had gone home early, and they'd cleaned up the engineering bay so there wasn't anything for Qrow to wire up or anything. So Qrow got to waste time at his desk.

Most of the furniture in the office was kind of cheap looking; the desks had some discreet areas of duct tape and the lamp flickered if he bent the cord the wrong way.

If someone came in to ask if he was done with his work, he'd just lean forward, open one of his eyes and smirk his trademark smirk and say 'yes.'

Of course, nobody actually came in to pester him about finishing his work anymore. It made him feel like maybe working so efficiency wasn't quite so worth it.

But he still held out hope that maybe the cute finance director might pop his head in again. Maybe Qrow would flex his arms and flash a recalcitrant smirk that made big, tough guys want to wipe it off his face.

Oh well, though. He shouldn't really be thinking about being popular. Shouldn't be obsessing about it. Instead, he should just go with the flow and let things happen naturally.

Qrow refreshed his chill. He had a bit of time today; he could use the company internet to download updates on his phone, or send some e-mails or-

Oh! That was right; he had a personal phone call he'd been meaning to make. Better sooner than later, probably.

Qrow glanced aside and rocked back and forward twice until the person on the other end of the line answered.

"'ello?" said a woman.

"Hey sis," Qrow said. He smiled, in reflex.

"Oh, hey Qrow-bro!" They exchanged pleasantries.

"I -uh," Qrow sat up and straightened his back, "I heard you moved back in with the Roses. Congratulations!"

"Oh, yeah- on probation, though. No problems so far, so I'm keeping myself on my best behavior."

"Well, it's a good start. And the Facebook says you three are doing this marriage workshop thing together?"

"Yeah, I guess its a marriage camp for polyamorous people. Who don't have to be married, so maybe 'marriage workshop' isn't the right description."

Qrow smirked a bit. "It's still pretty cool. I'm sure you'll have fun. When was that again?" he asked, for the sake of politeness. He knew when it was.

"That's this weekend, actually. It was real nice of Taiyang to agree to go right when he gets back."

"Ah sweet!" Qrow leaned back. "So I guess you'll need a house-sitter. I am definitely available."

Qrow leaned back and crossed his leg on his desk. He already had a lego set for Ruby and a bear for Yang, and a bag full of goodies.

"Well, actually," Raven began, apologetically.

...

...

"WHAT?!" Qrow yelled.

And then, for the first time in forever, someone came in to Qrow's cubicle to ask what was going on.

* * *

Glynda didn't bother with a suit this weekend; she had a comfortable pair of cargo shorts and a set of t-shirts and her tennis shoes. School had gone by even more slowly than it normally did on a Friday, and Port and Oobleck had even noticed Glynda's jitteryness and apprehension by the lunchbreak, and speculated at the cause all afternoon. Glynda didn't tell them exactly what it was that made her unable to concentrate, and she hoped Ozpin hadn't said anything (he'd smiled insufferably the whole day, though).

So yeah, it'd only been like two weeks, but Glynda had graduated from just babysitting to house-sitting while babysitting, over an entire weekend even, and that was cool. There were some extra responsibilities; making sure the lawn got watered, making sure the kids ate enough to stay conscious, that sort of thing. Glynda had done some quick experiments with cooking these last few days and she felt confident that her cooking was edible. And if not, they'd probably order pizzas or something cool. That's what cool people did, right?

Glynda hadn't been to too many slumber parties. Ozpin had hosted a study session that ended up going late enough that they'd all just decided to spend the night, once. It wasn't really a 'party', though, no matter how many times they called it a 'study party', Glynda couldn't imagine that sitting in a circle completing math homework was something people looked forward to. Like, if someone was all, 'hey, there's this cool party I'm going to this weekend,' it would probably involve less math and more, like, party games. (This weekend, Glynda mused, would actually involve a little math.)

But when other wierdos promised a slumber party that was just to hang out and play party games- Glynda didn't really quite see their appeal. Even if she did think it might be cool to spend the night in a cathedral or the school auditorium, she'd turned them all down because she didn't want to spend the night with the kinds of people who did that sort of thing. That might have been some circular logic, she realized.

But the point was, Glynda had a little bit of perfomance-based apprehension as she drove up to the Rose household after school. After she parked and before she got out of her car, she double-checked her goody bag; some candy and fruit-flavored gummy snacks, the Star Wars edition of Monopoly, a few DVDs of movies she thought Ruby and Yang might like. (Though, a part of her was looking forward to working through Yang's cartoon collection. They'd gotten through a fair amount of shows these last two weeks). Also, an epinephrine injector pen (Ruby and Yang weren't allergic to anything as far as Summer knew, but it helped to be safe), a first-aid kit, a small set of tools and a roll of duck tape, in case they broke anything.

Glynda also checked her personal pouch; extra toiletries (Glynda realized she usually forgot to brush her teeth when she babysat here, so she vowed to fix that tonight), a towel and shampoo, (Ozpin had assured her it wasn't that weird to use someone else's shower. In fact, some families wanted the babysitter to bathe their children, which was, thankfully, something Glynda didn't have to do.), an extra pair of glasses in case she misplaced her normal ones or Yang tried to steal them. Today, she was actually prepared. Hopefully.

And so Glynda knocked on the door and it opened to a familiar young girl, in an oversized red hoodie and black leggings and a big, big smile on her face.

"Glynda!" said her charge.

Ruby ran up and gave Glynda's legs a hug. Glynda smiled and picked up her charge by the armpits, holding her up, arms length, angled a little above Glynda's head. Ruby's mouth opened in a blissful smile and she held her arms out for a hug. Glynda pulled the girl towards her and leaned into the tightness of little Ruby's little hug around her neck and shoulders.

And Yang was there, leaned against a wall, one knee bent and her arm under her stump. She smirked knowingly, and Glynda decided she'd be willing to let the older sister's attitude slide, this time.

"Heh. You guys are silly," Yang said.

"Yeah?" Glynda said. She puffed out her cheek just a bit and reconsidered her decision to let Yang's attitude slide. "Well, you're silly times the infinite sum of all real and complex numbers from negative infinity to positive infinity, squared." Glynda closed her eyes and stood up straight. Ruby applauded.

Glynda peaked her right eye open. "And I mean that, each term in the series is squared, and the result of those operations are summed together."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Is that your final answer?"

Glynda wavered only a moment. "Yes."

"Well," Yang smirked, "If you add a complex number to a complex number with components of the opposite sign, it sums to zero. Every complex number squared results in another complex number, which by the nature of complex numbers can have either a positive or negative real component. Since each element has a counterpart with the opposite sign, the square of each element has its own counterpart of the opposite sign, meaning the whole series sums to zero."

Glynda paled, just a bit.

"Babysitter says I'm zero silly, which makes the sane one!" Yang laughed manically. She ran deeper into the house.

"Glynda," Ruby lamented, "Why would you say that?"

Glynda sighed in defeat. "I didn't mean to~"

Ruby chuckled and beckoned her sitter into the living room.

* * *

They decided upon spending the afternoon nestled on the sofa in front of the living room TV, watching cartoons. Ruby had brought out a selection of cereal, and Glynda decided to try a sugary one she'd seen the commercials before but her parent's refused to buy. Ruby poured Glynda a bowl immediately after the sitter mentioned this fact to her, and Glynda let Ruby spoon the first bit into her mouth. It was only a little awkward.

And at some point, while they were watching cartoons and eating cereal, there was a knock at the door.

Glynda blinked, twice. Then she lifted Ruby off her lap and pulled the spoon out of her mouth and set it in the bowl and set the bowl on the coffee table. She patted her shirt and pants free of any errant cereal dust and approached the door. Glynda took a breath and opened the door a crack and peaked out the door.

There was a man with familiar black hair. He wore some loose-fitting black khakis and a formal shirt, sleeves rolled up and half unbuttoned, showing half the logo on the t-shirt he wore under it. He also wore the most shizz-eating-est grin ever. He scratched the back of his head.

"Qrow!" Ruby yelled. She jumped off the couch, out of the blankets, and she ran, arms outstretched, to the door, opening it all the way and hugging the man's legs. 'Qrow' returned the hug and allowed the child to climb into his shoulder.

"Hey," Qrow said to Glynda. He offered a hand and his grin intensified. "You must be the babysitter I've heard so much about."

Glynda paused only for a moment. She had the impression that she had made a good impression on the Rose's, (wait, Yang had a different last name- eh, she'd worry about it later), so that probably meant Qrow had heard only good things about her. So Glynda dropped her guard a bit.

"Oh, yes," Glynda took the hand and returned the smile. "And you must be Ruby's father."

The world broke.

* * *

Yang was the first to recover, cackling wildly from the couch behind them.

"What makes you say that?" said the man, guardedly, as he shook Glynda's hand twice and released it.

"Uh," Glynda said, a little less sure now, " You have the same hair color?"

"I think Summer's hair matches Ruby's more closely."

"You have the same eyes?"

"...No we don't."

"I-" Glynda took another look. "Huh. I guess I thought you did on first glance-"

Ruby pouted. "You never looked into my eyes, Glynda?" she said.

"I- I mean-"

Ruby leaned over, out of Qrows arms and squished Glynda's cheeks with her palms as she made a face, staring at her, right in the eyes. Ruby had brilliant, silver eyes, Glynda noted; the ripples in the corona (shoot, she used to know the word for those) blending into a darker slate at the edges of the sclera. And right now, like most of the time, Ruby's eyes were wide with an endearing childlike wonder. And, Glynda realized, Ruby was looking into her own eyes as well; what did her eyes seem to suggest? Hopefully nothing bad.

Glynda looked to the man, and then to Yang, and then back to Ruby. "Aha." she laughed.

"Ok, that's better now." Ruby let go of Glynda's cheeks.

Glynda adjusted her glasses; they had been fogging up a little. "I don't think that was entirely necessary."

"But now you know what kind of eyes I have!" Ruby said, excitedly. Then she turned to Qrow. "See, it was very important. Oh! You haven't been introduced- this is Glynda, my favorite babysitter!"

"Your... favorite?" Qrow said.

"And Glynda, that's my uncle!" Ruby said, pointing to the man she was literally three centimeters away from.

"Oh! Oh. Okay. It's nice to meet you," Glynda said holding her hand out again, then pulling it back when she remembered they'd already shook hands.

The man cleared his throat.

"Yes. Uncle Qrow. So just asking, do I really look old enough to be the father of an eight and a half year old girl?" Qrow said.

"Eight and 2731/4380." Yang interjected.

Glynda glanced him over again. "I guess barely? You're like, what, twenty-three?"

The man closed his eyes and put his hands on his hips and stood up straight. "Twenty-three and a half."

"Twenty three and 1559/2196." Yang said.

Glynda's mouth flattened. "Ok, yeah. I can see how you're Rose's brother."

Yang cackled maniacally.

"I'm Raven's brother, actually," Qrow said.

"Oh! Oh. Okay. Sorry."

"I guess I can understand the confusion," he said, "Ruby, rather than going into medicine or sales or dropping out of college to play guitar in her van-"

"My mom's in the custodial business now," Yang said.

Glynda furrowed her brow and turned to Yang. "Wait, really? She wore a business suit to interview for a janitorial position?"

Then Qrow looked to the side and grimaced. "Shoot, I forgot to congratulate her on that-" He snapped his fingers. "Eh, siblings aren't perfect. But anyway- instead of doing any of that, Ruby wants to go into agricultural engineering, like her uncle."

"Oh, so you're," Glynda pontificated, "Actually, I think I've learned my lesson about assuming things. What was your field?"

"Mechanical engineering."

"Oh. That's pretty cool. Explains Ruby's obsession with Legos."

"Glynda's going to go into Physics!" Ruby said. She waved her arms.

Qrow looked surprised before he caught himself. "Physics?"

Glynda smirked a bit. "It's just general physics, so far. I'm trying to decide if I want to take the optics or the plasma elective at the college next year."

"Huh. I guess that's cool." Qrow nodded reluctantly.

"She's on track to be valedictorian next year!" Ruby said. Glynda blushed a little at the adoration.

Qrow's eyebrows shot up. "Really? So what are you doing babysitting little kids?"

"Hey! I'm not that little." Ruby pouted.

"Oh, aha," Glynda waved the air, "The company I was interning for went under," she said, softly, weakly.

"Wait," Qrow siad, "It's not the - " he coughed, "Well, I'll stop assuming things as well. So Ms. Babysitter, which company did you work for?"

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side.

"Cyberdyne."

"Oh!" Qrow laughed accusingly, "So you were hoping to be sniveling quisling in chief to the robot uprising?"

"Noo~," Ruby waved her arms, "Glynda would be an obsequious quisling in chief at the very least!"

Glynda laughed awkwardly. "Well," Glynda shot back at Qrow, partially out of curiosity but mostly because of this weird feud that had arisen between them, "What company do you work for?"

Qrow lowered his voice a bit. "Monsanto."

"Oh! Oh!" Glynda said accusingly, "And you're bashing on Cyberdyne? At least our terminators had uses beyond cheating small farmers out of their income."

"Look, I'm sure we could repeat vaguely remembered arguments from our respective company's legal departments, but I actually work on the harvesters, so I have nothing to do with the biological patents at my company."

"And I worked on plasma coils, so I had nothing to do with the AI fiasco that got the government to freeze my last paycheck."

Ruby waved her arms between them. "Don't fight! Both of what you do is cool!"

Glynda and Qrow stopped and then muttered apologies and then went silent.

Ruby tapped Glynda's shoulder the next time she was in reach. "But plasma coils are so cool, Glynda! You never told me you worked on those!" Ruby said.

Qrow bit his cheek. Glynda smirked triumphantly.

* * *

Then they all walked into the living room proper. Ruby had jumped out of her uncle's arms at this point and had resumed eating cereal.

"Hey Qrow!" Yang waved her stump, "How's Zwei?"

Qrow slapped his forehead. "Ah shoot! He's good- He's healed enough that he could have visited, sorry I forgot."

Glynda blinked. She wondered if there was a good time to ask who Zwei was.

"It's cool. I'm glad your roommate likes him." Yang said, "So how was work?"

Qrow waved the air. "Alright, so this morning, I had to go to Autozone to buy some fuses, and I saw there was a stand with a Frozen logo on it. Pretty sure it was antifreeze."

"Noooooo~" Ruby said.

"Yeah, tell us a story that doesn't suck," Yang said.

"Actually, we were watching cartoons," Glynda gestured towards the paused television. On the screen, a bear was in the middle of opening its mouth.

"Well, if you're tired of that," Qrow hefted his bag, "I got you another lego set, Ruby. And a bear for Yang."

"Wooo." Yang lethargically pumped her fist.

"Well, if you _are_ tired of cartoons, I brought a board game." Glynda said, "Star Wars monopoly."

"Yay, Star wars!" Ruby said. Yang sat more upright on the couch.

"You know it's not actually Star Wars, it's just the normal game with different pictures." Qrow tried to say. He was ignored, and Glynda tried not to focus on how good that made her feel.

Glynda saw she had the advantage though. She smirked and opened her bag."And if you're hungry," Glynda said, "I brought some candy."

Ruby and Yang jumped around Glynda like she was some sort of maypole, flailing their arms in the air. "Candy! Candy! Candy!" they chanted as they waved their arms.

" _I_ brought homemade cookies," Qrow said. He hefted his own bag.

Ruby and Yang paused for a moment to share an exuberant look. Then they ran to Qrow and started jumping around him, like he was a maypole, arms flailing. "Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!" they chanted in unison.

"Well-" Glynda rummaged through her pack, "I brought some fruits snacks and a coupon for pizza-"

Ruby and Yang started bounding around Glynda, now. "Pizza! Pizza!" they chanted, the warbling, echoing intonations of hungry children.

"If you're really hungry and want actual food," Qrow said, "I could treat you to Mcdonalds. They have green shakes there this time of year."

Glynda was going to say something about Mcdonalds not being real food, but Ruby and Yang had stopped completely and were entirely silent, frozen in mid-pose.

Then they starting running in circles around Qrow, chanting the loudest they had ever chanted. "Mcdonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!" they chanted in hideous unison to the pallid accompaniment of unknown winds.

"Oh," Glynda sighed in defeat. "I- I guess if you want to go to McDonald's, then you shouldn't let me keep you-"

"Glynda!" Ruby ran up and grabbed one of Glynda's hands in both her own, "C'mon! You'll love the green shakes there," Ruby turned to her uncle, "Right Qrow? Can Glynda come with us?"

Qrow coughed. "Yeah. I mean, I wasn't just going to leave the babysitter behind, aha," he said nervously.

"Yay! So c'mon Glynda!" Ruby said. She was now leaned at 45 degrees from the ground, pulling on Glynda's arm with all her weight. "Green shakes!"

"Green Shakes! Green Shakes!" Yang chanted in the distance.

Glynda smiled. "Okay."


	4. Green Shakes at McDonald's, pt 2

I guarantee no expertise or even basic, correct knowledge of Mcdonald's chain restaurant's menu, FDA health and safety policies, Parkinson's disease, cars, color psychology, nutritional requirements, romance, dating, how adult men flirt, babysitting, or petty rivalries.

However, I am trying to be as respectful as possible in regards to disability. I welcome any corrections, if anyone has any insights.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

The children chanted and danced as they dressed to their outdoor clothes, which mostly just added shoes and jackets to their normal attire.

Glynda stepped into her sneakers, not bothering to untie them. She hopped on one foot and bent her right knee to fix the tongue on her right shoe (her left shoe could deal with it), and she followed the chanting, jumping children into the driveway.

Qrow's car was a 2015 Subaru Impreza, and it looked well kept. The windows looked newly washed and there wasn't any visible clutter seen in the windows (Glynda suddenly became very self-conscious of the state or her own car).

Qrow pulled out his keys and unlocked the car. He turned to the younger of his nieces.

"Ruby, did you want to ride shotgun?"

"Green shak- no, that's okay. I want to ride in back with Glynda!" Ruby skipped over to Glynda and smiled up at the babysitter. Glynda rubbed her head.

Qrow's nose twitched, just slightly. "but- you always like to sit up front. That's why I keep a carseat in the trunk."

"I'm too big for a carseat now." Ruby pouted. Then she scrunched her face, just a bit, looking quizzical. She turned to Yang. "Why don't you ask Yang? She never gets to ride shotgun?"

"I-" Qrow furrowed his brow. "is that right? I swore she's rode up front before..."

Yang scrunched her mouth and shrugged. "Yeah, I never sit shotgun with you. Or with Summer."

"Oh. Ok. Yang," Qrow turned to his niece and smiled, "Would you like to ride shotgun?"

Yang stifled a smile. She waved the air. "If you want me to. Sure."

Qrow beckoned Yang over to the front of the car. For just a moment which Yang probably thought went entirely unnoticed, her face widened into a massive smile as she silently giggled, shaking her wrist and jumping on her toes, slightly, once.

* * *

Ruby held the door open for Glynda, which the sitter accepted with a smile and a flourish of her hand and a later wish that she had thought of something clever to say. Ruby then ran around to climb into the car on the other side.

Aftwr Ruby nestled into the seat next to Glynda, she turned to the sitter and held her hands about. "Glynda, can you put my seatbelt on for me?"

"Umm" Glynda protested, but started doing so anyway, "Surely you've put your seatbelt on before?"

"Yeah, but grown-ups do it better, and I want to be safe!"

"She's still just a teenager," Qrow mumbled under his breath.

"Well then," Glynda pulled the seatbelt over Ruby's waist and shoulder, nice and sturdy. The babysitter sat up straight. "As the babysitter it's my job to ensure the safety of my charges."

Ruby beamed. Glynda smiled back. Then she caught Qrow's look, and chuckled nervously.

Glynda then checked Yang's seatbelt. 'Checked' may have been to strong a word, because other than making sure it was buckled, this 'checking' thing seemed a little redundant.

But Yang approved the approval. Then the car jolted onto the roadways.

* * *

During the ride. Yang and Ruby resumed chanting their strange recitations to viridescent sugary liquid-solid hybrid matter.

"So, uh," Glynda ventured, " I guess you're really fond of Irish mint shakes?

"Green- Yeah!" Ruby said, smiling. "Green shakes! Green shakes!"

"Umm," Glynda turned to everyone in the car. "So is there a special reason you like them? Like there was a special occasion when you've had them that makes them special to you?"

"They're green!" Ruby explained.

Glynda blinked. "Is that it?"

"Yeah!" Ruby nodded three times, "Green is the tastiest color, but only on desserts."

"I disagree," Yang said, "But green connotes a specific dessert experience, like how yellow can be lemon-y on donuts and cake but be mango-y on smoothies."

"Or like how orange is the most dangerous color on clothes!"

"Like how red is the tastiest color, on meat." Yang said.

"Or how purple is the royalist color!" Ruby said.

"Or how grey is the plainest color."

"Or how pink is the babiest color!"

"Or how blue is the warmest color."

"Or how heliotrope is the color most associated with emotional equilibrium."

"Oh okay," Glynda said, "wait-"

Ruby and Yang continued about color psychology for a while. Glynda nodded along.

* * *

They arrived at the Mcdonald's. The door had the giant golden 'M' above it. On one side was a large adjacent glass complex that housed a signature Mcdonald's brand playpen, reflecting the midafternoon light onto the well-kept parking-lot pavement.

Ruby and Yang jumped out of the car as soon as it parked, and they ran around the car and then Qrow when he excited the car and then both Qrow and Glynda once the babysitter scootched out of the vehicle.

They entered the eatery. It was a Mcdonald's; red and tan tiled walls and booths and fleureacent lighting and ketchup spills on the floor.

"Green shakes! Green shakes! Green shakes!" chanted the children.

There wasn't a line for the register, so Qrow walked up, ending up far enough away that Ruby and Yang could comfortably circle him without bumpingt into the counter.

"So can I have," Qrow said to the screens above the register. "Lets just go with four happy meals-"

"Green shakes! Green shakes!"

Qrow tapped his chin. "Another two large fries and a chicken nugget box-"

"Green shakes! Green shakes!"

"And four large Irish mint shakes," Qrow finished.

"Green shakes!" the children concluded.

"uhhh," said the clerk, figeting nervously, " We're actually out of the syrup for our Shamrock Shakes(tm). Sorry."

And the world went silent. The air froze in apprehension.

...

...

"What?" said Yang, the hope gone from her voice.

"Uhhh, we have vanilla shakes-"

"Are they green?" asked Yang.

"uhhh, no."

"Then no deal!" Yang said. She tucked her arm under her stump and frowned.

"They're out of syrup." Ruby said to the floor, looking like she just got rejected from college or if some other apocalyse had occured.

Glynda's heart involuntarily ached at the absurd profundity of how sad Ruby and Yang looked. The babysitter bit her fist and blinked the beginnings of tears out of her eyes.

The clerk grinned awkwardly and ducked a little. "You know, Arby's has some really good mint shakes."

Glynda turned to her eating group, "There's an Arby's like two blocks from here."

There was a voice from behind the fryers. "New kid," said the manager, "Are you telling our customers to go somewhere els- Oh hey Glynda."

The manager tucked a strand of wavy black hair behind her ear and flashed an obnoxious smile at Glynda.

Glynda straightened her posture and flattened her expression. "Cinder."

Cinder smirked and tucked the rest of her loose hair behind her ear. She eyed the children. "Cute family, Glynders. Sorry we're out of irish mint sy-"

Glynda made a face. "Do I really look old enough to have a ten and a half year old daughter?"

"Ten and legitimate math"

Cinder chuckled. "I had meant family as in 'siblings', but wow, who knew that prim and proper Goody-two-shoes-witch managed to get pregnant twice before her junior year of high school."

Glynda bit her cheek Ruby's mough wobbled. Yang laughed.

"And with some sort of unshaved hipster indie-band-looking doodbag." Cinder gestured to Qrow. "Not bad-"

"What?" Qrow backed up. "Oh no. No no no no no no. Not even."

"No way no no no no-" Glynda declared.

"Nooooooooooo!" Ruby said. She waved her arms around in distress.

Qrow and Glynda shared a smirk. "Glad we're all on the same page," one of them said. They both nodded. Ruby sighed in what sounded like relief.

Cinder almost rid herself of a very unprofessional lopsided grin by the time Glynda turned back to her.

"As I was saying," Cinder said, "We do have different desserts I'm sure you'll like. Would you like a strawberry-banana or a mango-pineapple smoothie instead?"

Yang refreshed her pout. "Are they green?"

Cinder scrunched her mouth. "They are not."

"Then no deal." Yang pouted harder.

"We have apple pies. They used to be green, before they became pies."

"Then I guess we used to have a deal."

Cinder refreshed her obsequious food technician smile. "We also sell apples. Some of the are Granny Smith apples, which are green."

"Apples aren't desserts."

"Did you want to go somewhere else?" Qrow asked.

"Nowhere else has a playpen." Ruby intoned. "Oh well. I guess this Mcdonaldy trip will just be less special than we wanted."

Ruby and Yang let out identical, exhaggerated, despondant sighs.

Glynda's mouth wobbled before she caught herself and before she herself sighed a defeated sigh.

Glynda knelt down and unstrung her shoestrings. Her right foot had managed to slip in just fine when she put on her shoes before they left but her left heel had a slight misalignment. She looped her hands around all four shoestrings and pulled up to her knees. Then she tied her shoes, for real this time, and then Glynda double-knotted them."Again, there's an Arby's not too far from here. I can run and grab some shakes."

"What's McDonald's policy on outside food?" Qrow asked Cinder.

"As long as you order something here, you can use our dining facilities. " Cinder said. She frowned as she spoke though, but only slightly. "Again, apologies for the inconvenience-"

Glynda didn't stay to listen to the corporate syncophant. She bolteded out the door fast enough to regret not stretching before hand.

And ten minutes and $12.91 later, Glynda returned with four Mint Chocolate Swirl shakes in a cardboard container for easy transport.

Glynda rushed into the restaurant and regretted not taking a moment to catch her breath and compose herself before she kicked open the door, because she had to double over for three breaths. It probably looked less heroic than she would have liked.

But it got Ruby and Yang's attention. The children's faces lit up and they sidled out of their booth as fast as they could and ran up to Glynda, running around her in circles.

"Green Shakes!" they chanted in unison, resuming the hideous ritual.

"They're so green!" Yang said.

"They're so shakey!" Ruby said.

Ruby and Yang bounded in circles around Glynda.

"Yay! Glynda, you saved the day!" Ruby said. She then hugged Glynda's right leg.

"Oh," Glynda said between breaths. She smiled awkwardly and tried to believe in her own heroism. "You bet I did."

Then Glynda cleared her throat "Okay, so which ones did you want?" she said.

Ruby broke off her hug and Yang stopped running around. Ruby turned to Yang and gave her the first pick.

"Gimmie," Yang said, "The shakiest one."

Glynda blinked. "Ok, yeah. Um. Which one's the shakiest one?"

Qrow had caught up to his nieces by now. "Well, first compile a list of all qualities that describe a 'shake', and then develop a test protocol to determine how well each quality is represented in each sample."

"And then run the test 40 times across different samples, and compile a gausse curve based on an aggregate of the data," Yang said.

"And whichever shake is rightmost on the curve, that's the shakiest," Ruby said.

Glynda blinked. "Wait, for reals?"

"Yeah, that's how bell curves work," Ruby said.

Qrow smirked. "Didn't you take statistics?"

"I did, yes, but I meant, do you actually only want the shake that is, demonstrably and empirically, the shakiest, Yang?"

"Yes!" Yang smiled her biggest smile.

Glynda looked over the four chocolate mint swirl shakes.

The shake on the top left was a cold and viscous milk-based blended dessert, with whipped cream and chocolate syrup and sprinklings of chocolate pieces crumbled on top.

The shake on the top right was a milk-based and blended cold viscous dessert, with chocolate syrup and whipped cream and pieces of chocolate crumbling sprinkled on top.

The shake on the bottom left was a blended and cold viscous milk-based dessert, on top of which was chocolate syrup and whipped cream and sprinklings of crumbled chocolate pieces.

The shake on the bottom right was a blended and milk-based viscous cold dessert, with chocolate crumbled sprinkle pieces on top of whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

Glynda scrunched her mouth. She picked the bottom left shake and shook it up.

"There. Definition 2: shaking it makes it more shakey. Here you go, Yang."

Yang's face lit up and she took the shake. "Yay! Thanks, Glynda." She stuck the straw in her mouth and closed her eyes and slurped a big slurp, rising up on her tiptoes as she did. She swallowed and looked content.

Glynda turned to Ruby, who didn't wait to be asked which one she wanted. "I want the greenest one!" Ruby said. She looked to her sister. "Of the ones that remain, I mean."

Glynda pulled out her phone and downloaded a chromatography app. Cinder smirked insufferably when Glynda leaned over to ask the wifi password.

After running the test, Glynda gave the top left shake to Ruby. It was, according to science, the greenest one.

"Yay! Thanks, Glynda!" Ruby said, eyes wide and little hands clasped triumphantly before she reached out to grab both sides of the shake.

Glynda took the top right shake and handed it to Qrow. "Unless you want to make some irrelevant request?

'Well actually-"

"Too bad, you're an adult."

"I was just going to say thank you, for getting these shakes." Qrow looked down to his nieces. "Sorry, I meant 'Yay, Thanks Glynda!'."

Glynda's expression flattened.

Qrow coughed. "But for seriously, thank you. For Ruby and Yang's sake."

"Oh. Yes. For the children's sake. Of course. You're welcome." Glynda clamped her mouth down on the straw of the remaining shake.

* * *

And so they ate. There was some nice small talk and then Ruby and Yang started dueling with their french fries.

* * *

And at some point, a ding and a shuffle marked that two new people entered the Mcdonald's. Glynda saw them tepidly approach the counter from the corner of her eye. She didn't pay any attention to them, until she noticed that Qrow was staring, unblinking, at the arrivals.

"Something up?" Glynda asked idly.

"OH? N-nothing. Not at all." Qrow then became very focused on dipping one of his french fries in ketchup.

Glynda then turned around to see what was up- it had to be the new customers, right? That was the only thing that had happened.

One of the arrivals was a stern, stocky middle-aged man- someone with had some tufts of grey at his temples. That didn't necessarily mean he was old, but it meant he was either old or was under a lot of stress. He pushed a wheelchair with a young, orange-headed girl in it.

"Who's he?" Glynda asked, idly. Yang and Ruby looked between themselves.

"Who's who?" Qrow said, to the wall. His voice almost squeaked.

Yang grinned mischeviously. "Is that the guy from your work you have a crush on?" she said.

Glynda paused eating her fries.

Qrow was-

Well, Raven was- and there wasn't anything wrong with that, of course- and didn't she read somewhere that it was genetic?

Glynda shrugged and resumed eating.

Qrows' mouth flattened. He rubbed Yang's head. "It's possible I tell you entirely too much." He inhaled and exhaled. "But yes. That's James."

"You should talk to him."

"No~"

"Do it!" squeaked Ruby. She held her arms in the air theatrically. "Believe in yourself!"

Qrow sunk his head into his shoulders. "Hey, keep it down, will ya~

"Do it! Do it!" Yang started chanting.

"I really shouldn't-"

"Do it! Do it!" Ruby joined in as well.

"Okay, okay," Qrow said, "Just stop making a commotion."

Qrow snuck out of the booth and put his hands behind his back and awkwardly sidled up to stand in line behind the man and the girl.

Yang got out of the booth and followed him.

Then Ruby followed Yang.

Ruby turned back and beckoned to Glynda. Glynda sighed internally and followed her charge.

So now the line had six people, single file.

Qrow wasn't saying anything. Yang was looking between the back of Qrow's head and Ruby and the girl in the wheelchair, and Ruby was looking between Glynda and Qrow, and the man and the girl in the wheelchair tried to make up their minds on what to order.

"So I admit I don't come here very often," said the man to the girl.

"Oh," said the girl to the man, "I thought this was what normal people did?"

"It's one of the most popular fast food places, yeah." The man nodded. "It's totally normal for people to eat here. I just meant to say, I am not normal in this way."

"Oh okay." Said the girl. "Well, we get to be normal now."

The man chuckled twice."Yes we do. So does anything look good? Let me know; it'll help me make up my mind."

"Ummm," The girl brought a hand to her mouth. "They have, like, sandwiches, right? I should pick the best sandwich."

"There's pictures of some of the food. We could try the 'Big Mac'. It has a very large picture."

The girl nodded sagely. "I remember the commercials for those."

The man and the girl talked for a while more. Cinder the food service technician was standing patiently behind the register, smiling her corporate smile, waiting for the two of them to come forward with an order. Qrow still didn't say anything; he stood up straight, with his hands behind his back.

Glynda opened her mouth on but then Yang turned to her, with a pointer finger vertically across her lips. Glynda clamped her mouth shut and nodded.

Cinder asked the pair if she could help them with their order. Then the man and the girl tried to categorically determine how positively correlated popularity was to excellence, and if in a situation where every experience was commoditized, if there actually was a meaningful choice between a popular but impersonal choice and a unique choice with a higher chance of being sub-optimal. Robert Frost was quoted at some point.

Yang then kicked Qrow's shin.

Qrow cleared his throat. "I always say, you can't go wrong with a happy meal," he said. "I mean, you can, but there's an option to get chicken nuggets, and they're pretty good."

The man turned around and raised his eyebrows in surprise, or perhaps delight. "Oh, Mr. Branwen." The man held out his left hand. "Fancy bumping into you here."

Qrow took the hand and shook once and then rubbed the back of his head and smirked at the wall. "Yeah..."

"We're not in line," the man said to the four of them, "feel free to go ahead and order."

"Oh, we're not in line either." Qrow said.

"Oh. Okay." the man said.

There was some awkward silence.

Yang then leaned out of the line. "Hey Penny!" Yang said. She waved her stump.

Qrow's mouth scrunched to the side, just for a moment.

"Oh, hey..." the girl said. The man turned her wheelchair around, so she wasn't turning her head so rigidly. "...you..." the girl said. She then brought her hand up and slowly moved it in an air-waving motion. "I mean, I remember you, I just forgot your name."

"Yang," said the owner of that name. She held out her left hand.

The girl and Yang shook hands.

"I met Penny in the support group, back when I still went," Yang said, looking to Qrow and Ruby and Glynda. Yang then turned to the man. "Hey mister, I like your arm!" Yang held out her stump to shake the mans hand.

"Oh. Huh. Would you look at that." the man took Yang's limb with his right hand, this time, and Glynda realized it was a prosthetic. A very fancy looking prosthetic, with wires running along the visible parts and rubber gripping suraces on the fingertips. Three aluminum and plastic digits closed around Yang's stump. "It's nice to meet you again, Yang."

"Yeah, and you work with Qrow?" Yang gestured to a now slightly red agricultural engineer, "He's the best!"

"Yeah, he's really smart and can run the fastest!" Ruby added.

"Ahahaha," Qrow put a hand on a shoulder of each his niece's and made to lead them away, "We'll be right in our booth."

"Come sit with us!" Yang said to Penny,

"Oh- Uh, okay," Penny turned to the man, "I just have to figure out what I need to order."

"Wait," Yang said. She stopped, and Qrow didn't push her forward. Yang rubbed her chin with her sole hand, "Is Mcdonald's good for people on Parkinsons' medication?"

"u-umm-" Penny began.

"Of course," Cinder said. She smiled a corporate smile and pontificated mechanically. "Mcdonald's restaurants is committed to the nutritional health of all our customers and we are dedicated to catering to a diverse and inclusive consumer base. Our restaurants regularly score perfect scores on our annual FDA inspections."

Yang tucked her left arm under her right armpit and jutted her chin out. "Hygienic facilities don't imply healthy food; that's obfuscating the issue. Mighty suspicious."

Cinder refreshed her fast food smile. "My apologies. I thought you were asking about risks of contamination." Cinder pontificated. "All food served at Mcdonald's restaurants is up to FDA standards and codes regarding heath and safety."

"Wasn't there a movie about a guy gaining 200 pounds on a diet exclusively of Mcdonald's?"

"And I think that movie's results were not reproducible with independent trails. Besides, weight is a function of calorie intake. You can gain weight on a vegan diet if you eat to much, you know."

"But why do more people get fat off Mcdonald's than on vegetables?"

"Can you blame our food for being so good that people want to eat too much of it? Furthermore, thinness is not equivalent to health and health is not equivalent to virtue. You shouldn't cast aspersions on someone just because they're fat."

"You can asperse your food for containing minimal nutrition and having too much sugar and fat, requiring customers to eat more empty calories to reach their minimum nutrient levels. You're basically just forcing people to eat too much salt, fat, and sugar."

"That is a false equivalency; Everyone eats food, and there's no food that's completely nutritional. We encourage our customers to eat balanced meals but it is not our fault if they do not."

"Aha!" Yang pointed and smirked a grin reminiscent of her Uncle's, "You admit that Mcdonald's isn't nutritional!"

Cinder smiled and bowed slightly. "I do believe I mentioned that no food is completely balanced. For example, chicken contains no vitamin C-"

"So they get scurvy?" Glynda interjected.

Ruby tugged on Glynda's shirt. "Or maybe they're immune to scurvy, because they don't need vitamin C?"

"Then they'd make the perfect pirates."

"Chicken pirates! Are they more cowardly than regular pirates?"

"Maybe, but they are surely more delicious than regular pirates."

Ruby jumped on her tip-toes and waved her arms. "I think you're right!"

Glynda smirked. "Of course I am."

"Are you done?" Cinder said. Her brow furrowed as much as the corporation regulations allowed her to, while she was in front of customers, "I'm trying to take an order here."

"I was trying to defuse the argument." Glynda mumbled to the ground.

Yang pouted. "Well I'd be winning if she didn't keep spinning the issue."

"Young lady," Cinder refreshed her corporate smile, "I've taught Sunday school for years. I can spin this issue in which way, all day, every day."

Ruby chuckled. "You're funny, lady." she said.

"No she's not." Glynda said. She puffed out her cheek and crossed her arms.

"And, umm," Penny said, "I'm not on Sinemet anymore, I got the chip." Penny tapped the base of her spine. "So I don't need to watch what I eat."

Glynda decided against nitpicking that statement.

Yang blinked. "Oh, okay then. Ignore this conversation."

There was some more awkward silence.

Qrow then laughed nervously twice and led Yang away to their seats. After he was out of sight from the pair he made an exasperated face.

* * *

Glynda and her ... patron family? Her charges and their uncle returned to their booth. And a few minutes later, the man and the girl approached them, presumably to have company while they waited for their food. Qrow and Yang moved a few chairs to accommodate the wheelchair.

"So, umm," Glynda said. She held out a hand. "I'm Glynda Goodwitch. The babysitter."

The man smiled the most authentic corporate smile Glynda had seen today. "James Ironwood. I'm the finance director at the local Monsanto plant."

And it turned out that Glynda held out her right hand, so Mr. ironwood had to shake with his prosthetic one. It was plastic and metal and rubber and rudimentary motors. Three actuators whirred to life during the shake.

Glynda stopped herself from staring. "Cool," she said as she made mature eye contact. Glynda wondered if she should take this opportunity to network. Then she remembered there was a second person she had to introduce herself to.

"I'm Penny," said the girl in the wheelchair, once Glynda got around to holding out her hand in introduction.

"Okay, cool. Yeah." Glynda nodded and wondered what she should say next.

However, before her silence got too awkward, Ruby interrupted.

Ruby's eyes were wide with wonder. "So you have a computer chip in your head?" She sked Penny.

Glynda almost choked on her fries. Some of the chewed food almost went up her nose.

"Technically it's just an electrode in my head, but there's an external microchip." Penny turned her head and pointed to her hair accessory, which, on close inspection, concealed some contraption of wires and metal.

"It's an experimental procedure," Mr. Ironwood explained.

"So you're like a cyborg?" Ruby said. Her eyes widened even more. "That's so cool!"

Penny turned to the wall and rubbed the back of her head. "Oh. Uh, thanks."

Yang elbowed her uncle, and Qrow then leaned over and held out his own hand. To Mr. ironwood.

"Hello, again," James lilted. "I think we've met before."

Qrow's face relaxed into an insufferable smirk. "Yeah, you seem a little familiar."

James cleared his throat. "So this is my daughter, Penny." he gestured to the cyborg orange-haired girl.

"Qrow Branwen. I work under the same ceiling and drink the same coffee as your father," Qrow said. He ran some fingers through his hair. "I was unaware that James had a daughter," Qrow pontificated. "Your mother is a very lucky woman."

"Oh, uh," James rubbed the back of his head with his prosthetic head. "Ahem." He cleared his throat. "I'm not married, actually. I adopted Penny after we met at a biotech conference out east." James turned to Penny and gestured for her to continued if she wanted to. "

Penny wobbled her mouth for a moment. "I didn't have a family so I figured, why not volunteer for those medical procedures in the papers? And then I met all these nice people who knew what I was going through. It was nice."

And James scrunched his mouth to the side, "And I figured, hey, why don't I try to give a child a better life? Even if it's only a difference for a single person, it'd be worth it."

"Awww," Qrow said, sounding the most sincere as Glynda had ever heard him (which, admittedly, was only a few hours.). "That was very sweet of you."

Glynda agreed, but only non-verbally. She blinked a couple times to crush the inklings of crying in the corners of her eyes. She didn't want to show weakness in front of her charges.

James's cheeks tinted just a bit as he nodded in an a way that attempted stoicness. "Thank you."

Glynda was, guiltily, a little happy that nobody else seemed to know what to say to fill the awkward silence either.

Well, except Yang, apparently.

After a few moments and a few glances to everyone else at the table, Yang waved a fry around and got Mr. Ironwood's attention. "So biotech conference. Is that where you got your cyborg arm? Can I see it?" Yang said.

James pulled his right arm out. He pulled his sleeve to reveal more pieces of metal and wire. "The elbow joint's not very sophisticated, but the fingers are wired up to some muscle sensors, so I can grasp things when I'm not feeling left-handed."

Ruby wiggled the fingers on her own left hand.

"Electrodes? Can I see?" Yang's eyes flickered to Qrow for just a moment.

James rolled up his sleeve a bit more. The prosthetic ended just above the elbow, in a steel cage around the stump of his bicep, with a few clear plastic suction cups around several muscles groups that seemed signifigant. There was a gearbox where his elbow would have been. Yang reached out and touched the metal.

"Woah!" Yang turned to her uncle. "Qrow, come feel this.

Qrow's eyebrows rose just a bit as he leaned forward. "Can I? If you're a private man, that's okay, though."

"Uhhh," James said, He cleared his throat. "Not at all. Feel free, if you'd like to."

Qrow licked some french-fry salt off the tips of his fingers and wiped them on a napkin. He traded places with Yang in a surprisingly coordinated do-ci-do.

Qrow looked at James's eyes for a moment and smirked with a quick exhale through the corner of his mouth. He ran his hand along the aluminum bars that made up Jame's forearm. He touched the tip of the graspers with the tips of his own fingers, and then ran his hand back along the forearm bars up to the muscle tensions sensors. Qrow hovered his fingertips over the fleshy part of Jame's arm, and then looked up at the man's face for approval before tracing the skin around the sensors.

Yang then turned to Penny. "I don't think I've seen you in school this year."

"I've had to be homeschooled for a bit. I'd like to come back, if I get the nerve to."

Yang smiled. "You should! We can hang out at recess."

Glynda then unflattened her expression and turned back to Ruby. She leaned in conspiratorially.

"So I'm gonna be honest," Glynda whispered, "I have no idea how to talk to the crush of the uncle of the girl I'm babysitting and his adopted daughter. So I'm glad they're occupied with Qrow and Yang."

Ruby then smiled her biggest smile. "That's okay!" She whispered a little loudly, Glynda thought. "You can just talk to me! Like, what do you think chicken pirates eat when they're out at sea?"

So they discussed the logistics of chicken pirates some more.

At some point Yang leaned over to whisper something into her sister's ear. Ruby lit up and stood up in the booth and leaned over to her sitter.

"Hey hey Glynda," Ruby said. "if you were a pirate, would you put your parrot on this side," Ruby patted Glynda's shoulder which was closest to her. Ruby then reached over, extending her little arm around the back of Glynda's neck to reach the far shoulder, "or this side?"

Glynda had to think about the answer to that question.

* * *

END OF CHAPTER NOTES:

So I'm going to pretend I'm qualified to talk about this. This is the short version. If you find a medical source with differing information, trust that information. Apologies to any readers with PD who don't see their experiences accurately represented here.

Parkinson's Disease is a neurological muscle tremor disorder. Patients can take medication to calm their neurons, but there's also a procedure called Deep Brain Stimulation where an electrode in the brain regulates neurological activity. It's sort of like a pacemaker. The procedure has been around for decades, but early versions were crude and became less effective over time; most patients who elected for the operation had to return to supplementary medication at some point. However, modern versions are being worked on that incorporate computer magic to make the procedure more effective.

Thus, Penny's tremors are under control enough that she is able to walk, but she prefers to only do it in short bursts, hence the wheelchair, and she's not on medication at the moment but, like most people who've done DBS, might need to resume it in the future.


	5. Green Shake's at McDonald's, pt 3

The opinions of the characters here do not represent the view of the author, or even, necessarily, healthy or correct viewpoints. Odds are, your opinions are good enough for you, and if fictional characters disagree with you, just let it go.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

Ruby kept her arm around Glynda's shoulder as the babysitter thought about which shoulder she'd keep her parrot on, if she were a pirate. Later on, Glynda would realize she probably took way too long, because Ruby was just standing there awkardly, and Qrow was shooting them looks.

"I'm right handed," Glynda thought outloud, "So maybe I should keep the parrot on my left shoulder, so it won't get shaken too much when use stab people with my cutlass. " Glynda mimed a stabbing motion.

Ruby glanced at Yang, real quick. Yang shrugged.

Ruby turned back to Glynda. "Okay, cool!" Ruby said. She climbed back down to her seat.

* * *

And when the - shoot, what was their last name?- when James's and Penny's food arrived, Penny and her father had a brief whispered conversation. Then Penny stood up out of the wheelchair, a little shakily. Her father followed her, ready to catch her or something; he held his hands out, palms up, following Penny the whole trip, but Penny didn't stumble or fall as she retrieved the tray of food, even if her gait was a bit deliberate.

The four of them themselves were almost done with their food- there were just a few McNuggets left and Glynda was going to let the children finish those off- so Glynda gathered them up and looked over the rest of the mess they'd made.

"You haven't touched your toys," Qrow said, at some point.

Glynda hadn't intended to say anything about those.

Ruby folded her arms. "Happy meal toys are for babies. Or, possibly, unemployed college-age men."

Yang stuck her hand into her opposite armpit. "Yeah!"

"Oh really?" James said, "I thought ponies were a little girl thing."

Yang tucked her hand under her stump. "Not anymore, they're not."

Glynda kept her mouth shut. She tried to make some nonchalant expressions as she looked around the table and the room Qrow also seemed to be making a similar expression, when she made eye contact with him when her gaze was roaming, but Qrow refreshed his smile and opened one of the pony toys and set it on the table.

"I think I'll give this one a drink of water," Qrow pushed his cup towards the pony, "Because it seems to be a little _hoarse."_

Glynda groaned internally.

And when she looked around, she saw that Yang and Penny and James were chuckling, and you know what, whatever, but it also turned out Ruby was laughing, and, upon that realization, Glynda suddenly had this really, _really_ strong desire to come up with a joke that was better than that (maybe about pirate chickens?), and to tell it to Ruby, and for it to make Ruby laugh. And, Glynda's cheeks were hot and her hands seemed to want to clench, for some reason.

Ruby chuckled twice, with her whole body, and then she froze.

Then her eyes started watering. Her mouth devolved into an open-mouthed cry and her shoulders twitched, slightly. She hiccuped.

"W-what's wrong?" Qrow said. He leaned forward.

Ruby sobbed once. "I got some french fries in my nose~"

Glynda took a moment to process that. "Oh _Ruby."_

Glynda rushed over (which involved mostly scootching along the booth, but it still felt like she was rushing over). She pulled a napkin from the batch that came on her tray and held Ruby's head in one hand and pressed the napkin against Ruby's nose. She instructed her charge to blow, and Ruby did.

Glynda tried not to think about the squishy, mucous covered mush that only had a thin layer of paper away from her fingers oh wait too late for that-

After Ruby gestured that she was good, Glynda got up and threw the napkin away and shuddered, just once, when nobody was looking. When she returned, Ruby was laughing and smiling like nothing had even happened, and Qrow looked mildly miffed.

Ruby and Yang left the table to look at the play area, just real quick, they promised. That left Qrow and Glynda and James and Penny to gather up the remaining fries and nuggets and the toys, to move to a table overlooking the playpen.

Ruby and Yang had left the happy meal toys alone. One was unwrapped and on the table; the rest were in the happy meal boxes.

"Well," Glynda said, grabbing the unopened plastic toy by its feet, "If you don't want it, I'll just take it then-"

Qrow grabbed onto the toy's head, "Actually, I was going to give that to a friend of mine, if nobody here wanted it-"

Glynda put on her best smile. "Well, if we're giving it away, I know a charity-"

Qrow smiled as well, "I live closer to the Catholic orphanage, actually-"

Glynda squinted her eyes and widened her lips around a teeth-clenched grin. "I'm sure they get their fair share of donations. The most environmental thing would be to recycle it-"

"Actually," Penny said. She lifted a finger nervously, "If you don't want it, can I have it?

Glynda relaxed her face. Qrow did the same. they looked at each other for a second, and then they both said, at the same time, some variation of 'Yeah sure.,

They both let go of the toy at the same time. It clattered onto the table.

Glynda was quicker to pick the toy back up to give to Penny. She smiled, to Penny and Qrow. "Here you go." Qrow only looked a little annoyed.

Penny's face lit up. "Thanks!" she made the toy baby horse walk around the table, for three seconds. "Pinkie Pie's my favorite."

Qrow's face was unreadable. "Oh?" he said, "How come?"

"She's everything I hope to be." Penny said.

Glynda also kept her face passive. "How so?" she asked.

"She doesn't respond in normal ways to social cues, but everyone likes her anyway." Penny nodded.

Qrow and Glynda blinked at each other.

"Wait," Glynda said, gesturing to the adult man, "So you-"

"I mean, I'm in the periphery demographic-" Qrow smirked, "what's your excuse?

"I- well, I'd always been interested in cartoons," Glynda began-

And then Ruby and Yang came back to grab a few more bites of french fries.

Glynda and Qrow ended their conversation, but shared nods of begrudging respect.

* * *

And when the kids were done with their foods, they ran into the play area. Qrow and James and Glynda moved to a table half-populated with chairs overlooking the ball pit and jungle gym and slides.

After Glynda sat down, Ruby ran back and waved to Glynda's attention. Which seemed to be unnecessary, because afterwards Ruby just ran up to jump at Glynda's feet.

"Glynda Glynda, watch me climb on things!" Ruby pulled on Glynda's hand.

Glynda opened her mouth. "uhhh," she managed to say.

Qrow showed up and smiled at Ruby. "I'll watch you climb on things, Ruby," he said.

Ruby puffed you her cheek. "You already know I can climb on things. I want Glynda to see~"

Glynda opened her mouth awkwardly. "I have no reason to doubt your ability to climb on top of things."

"But I want you to see me!" Ruby pulled on Glyndas hand, so that she was 45 degrees from the ground, "C'mon! Please Glynda? Watch me climb on things?"

"Uh," Glynda said. There wasn't really any reason not to, because she'd just be sitting here and watching Ruby play, but this still seemed kind of strange to her. "Okay. Sure." Glynda flashed an encouraging smile.

And Ruby wore a smile that reached her ears. She jumped on her toes, twice. "Yay! Okay, I'm going now, watch me, Glynda!"

* * *

The thing maybe Ruby didn't realize was, was that a lot of the plastic tunnels were opaque and a lot of the climbable sections were behind other sections, so Ruby immediately dissapeared from view when she ran into the play area.

Glynda chuckled nervously and looked for something to do in the meantime. Glynda turned to where Penny and Yang were talking.

"So I was doing some math in my head," Glynda told Yang, "And I don't see why the sum of all real and complex numbers between zero and infinity is zero. Because, like, if you take (2 + 3i)^2, you get (10 + 6i), but (2 - 3i)^2 is (-2 6i), and the sum of those isn't zero."

Yang paused she closed her mouth and rubbed her chin. Then the pulled out a napkin and one of the half-pencils used to complete the maze on the back of the piece of paper they put on the trays to soak up the food grease.

"So we've established that the sum of all (x + yi), in which x and y go from negative infinity to positive infinity, is zero. We can call that Sum1."

Glynda nodded tentatively. She had the gut-chilling suspicion that she was going to be proven wrong, except this time it was in public and oh shizz Cinder might be watching that'd be the worst thing ever-

"And if you take the sum of all (x+yi)^2, you just have the sum of all (x+yi)*(x+yi), which is just Sum1*Sum1, which is zero, because Sum1 is zero, and zero times any sum of numbers is zero."

Glynda looked to the wall. Her cheeks felt hot. "Okay." She managed to say, weakly.

Yang laughed maniacally. Penny seemed impressed.

Glynda cleared her throat and breathed again. She turned to Penny. "So if I understand correctly," Glynda began. She waved the air in front of her ."And let me know if I'm out of bounds but- tou're," Glynda gestured towards Penny, "Celebrating your recovery from surgery with," Glynda gestured to the walls and ceiling and the front counter of the restaurant, "A trip to Mcdonald's."

Penny smiled. "Yes."

"I mean," Glynda began, "I wouldn't think of McDonald's as a celebratory restaurant, you know?"

"Mcdonald's is an international icon," Penny said, "Everyone eats here."

"That is correct," Cinder said. She took a seat in the booth, where Ruby had been sitting. She pulled out a cigarette and stuck it into the corner of her mouth.

"Umm," Penny said, "This is a no-smoking zone-"

"'s not lit," Cinder tapped the cigarette. "I just gotta have one in my mouth every so often."

Glynda blinked. She then frowned.

"Cinder, what are you doing here?" Glynda said, not quite keeping the annoyance out of her voice. "Shouldn't you be flipping burgers or something?"

"I'm on break." Cinder waned back and smirked. "It's normally my smoking break, but I'm giving that up to talk to a beloved classmate." Cinder smiled insufferably.

Glynda rolled her eyes and scootched away. Luckily, Ruby reappeared just then, at the very top of the play area, so Glynda was spared having to talk to Cinder.

* * *

 _Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose surveyed the wreckage of the castle she'd just conquered. She hung with one arm onto a desiccated flagpole, bearing the standard of a newly dead nation._

 _"And behold; I am the lord of all I survey." Ruby intoned. She smirked a victory smirk and made victorious gestures with her free arm._

* * *

"Do you see?" Ruby called out, dropping her voice affect, to the tables below her.

"Yes, that's very nice!" Glynda called, trying to keep her voice calm, from the eating areas, "Now please get back down to one of the designated play areas."

Ruby then got on her stomach and lowered herself on to a safe ledge. She then crawled out of view.

Glynda released a breath she didn't relive she was holding and stopped leaning forward.

"Aww, aren't you just the best babysitter." Cinder smirked her insufferable smirk again.

Glynda's cheeks felt hot. "Knock it off, Cinder." Glynda turned to talk to Penny again, but apparently Yang had escorted her to the ball pit, at the base of the play structure. And Qrow and James were having some sort of conversation that meant they weren't paying attention to anything else.

"Hey, don't be like that. I'm complimenting you. I saw what you did when she got french fries in her nose. That was very maternal of you."

Glynda's cheeks grew hot again. "Oh um. Cool. That's what babysitters are supposed to be, maybe?

And then there was a loud, raking sound, from a stool being pushed across the linoleum tiles. Ruby had gotten down from the playpen and had retrieved a stool, pushing it to the bench. Because Cinder had stolen her seat; Glynda realized, and she was going to tell Cinder to move except Ruby had finished providing her own sitting apparatus.

Ruby reached up onto the seat of the stool and started pulling herself up. "So Cinder, was it?" Ruby said. She also said some adorable exertion noises as she bodily pulled herself up on to the stool in what appeared to be the least efficient way possible. But once Ruby reached he top, she leaned forward, with her hands on the stool and her legs kicking off the edges. "You've gone to school with Glynda? Tell me all about what she's like at school."

Glynda's mouth froze in an open position. Cinder replied immediately, with a chuckle and smile, "Well," she began, and Glynda's blood seemed to be doing something funny, "On the first day of high school, Glynders here ate a squillion pancakes at the 'breakfast for lunch' lunch."

Glynda blushed. Ruby, however, opened her mouth in amazement and clutched her cheeks. "Wow, that's so many!"

"A squillion's not a real number!" Yang said from ball pit.

Cinder waved the air. "That is correct, my mistake. In actuality, Glynda only ate literally 3.525732 septacentillion pancakes."

Cinder smirked. Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side.

"That's better," Yang yelled from the ball pit.

Glynda waved the air at Ruby. "It was only like twelve."

"Twelve and a half," Cinder said. "I remember because Adam, Roman and I all gave you half of one of ours to see how many you'd actually eat. And it turned out to be twelve and a half."

Glynda continued to correct the story. Ruby gazed between the two of them, enraptured.

Cinder turned back to Ruby. "And she's first in our class, 'cause she's a nerd." Cinder said.

"Excuse you," Glynda said. "You're, like, consistently in the top ten of our class, grade-wise."

"Well I have to keep my grades up or the Mother Salem's going to drag me back to the Maximum Security Catholic School."

Glynda puffed out her cheek. "And aren't you an officer in, like, the three nerdiest clubs in the school?"

"Hey, theater's not nerdy. It's geeky. Get it right."

"You know who cares about the distinction between geeks and nerds?" Glynda said, "Nerds! Nerds like you."

Cinder seemed unfazed. "That is a component of but not a necessary factor in one's status as a nerd." She shifted the cigarette around her mouth.

"And the wargaming club? That's gotta be the nerdiest thing in the world."

"Hey, there is universal appeal to simulating tactical battles with tiny figurines."

"Wow!" Ruby said, "Glynda and I do those all the time."

Glynda opened her mouth and closed it. She hadn't looked at it that way.

"Oh? Maybe you should stop by some time," Cinder said to Ruby.

Glynda frowned. "And you can't tell me your music club isn't nerdy."

"Hey, the Light Music Club has a long, prestigious history of being cool," Cinder said. "Besides, I don't do the quintessential nerdy things like spending all my nights studying physics. Like some nerds."

Glynda blushed slightly. "Hey, I don't spent that much time studying. I have a life."

""Yeah," Ruby said, "She spends her nights watching cartoons with me!"

Glynda's cheeks grew a little hotter again. Cinder snorted and smirked. "Cartoons? That's literally the nerdiest thing you can watch, nerd."

Ruby waved the air. "So we've established that Glynda's a nerd-"

Glynda frowned.

"She also wears glasses," Cinder pointed out.

Ruby rubbed her chin. "True, true."

Speaking of which, Glynda's were starting to fog up as her face overheated in embarrassment.

"But what else?" Ruby said, "Does she have other significant personality traits that you can think of?"

"Glynda hates the guitar," Cinder stated, matter-of-factly.

Ruby looked scandalized. "But guitars are so cool!" She clutched Glynda's arm and rocked forward and backwards, "Don't hate the guitar, Glynda! Don't worry, I'll change your mind!" Ruby looked around, "As soon as I find a guitar..."

Glynda groaned, outwardly, because she knew what was going to happen next.

"As it so happens," Cinder said, "I happen to have my guitar on me..." Cinder pulled out an acoustic guitar out from behind her. She managed to do that with all sorts of stringed instruments at school.

"Wow, they let you bring a guitar to work?"

Cinder tapped her nose. "Only on breaks."

Ruby managed to crawl behind the guitar. It was bigger than she was.

"See, Glynda, guitars are cool!" Ruby strummed a C chord. "It's one of the only redeeming qualities about Raven."

Ruby strummed another C chord.

Glynda took a few breaths to compose herself. "I don't hate the guitar," Glynda said. She patted Ruby's hand. "Cinder's just sore because I wouldn't let her band perform at the VE Day dance."

Cinder pouted theatrically. "We even learned Russian and everything for it."

"You learned how to sing one song, with incorrect pronunciation."

"To be fair, it's not like anyone would have noticed."

Ruby played another C chord and then looked to Cinder. "So what else do you know about Glynda?"

"Well," Cinder said, "She gets on my case all the time for harmless rule violations."

"Yeah, such harmless school rule violations like smoking and drinking on campus."

Cinder kept the insufferable smirk that so many people seemed to have lately. "Hey, I only smoke in the parking lot, and I never drink."

"Aren't you catholic?"

Cinder looked scandalized, her mischievous demeanor dropping for the first time this afternoon. "Wine at communion is optional."

Glynda leaned back slightly. She'd realized she was probably over the line, there, and she looked around for a change in subject-

"Is that the only chord you know how to play?" Glynda asked Ruby.

Ruby looked at the ground and reddened. "...yes," she mumbled.

Cinder laughed. She held out her hands and Ruby returned the guitar. Or, at least, Ruby managed to lift the guitar slightly and tilt it towards Cinder.

Cinder started playing some sort of swing tune. It was, Glynda would have to admit, not quite the worst thing ever.

"Wow, Cinder," Ruby said, "You're so cool!"

"No she's not!" Glynda said. She puffed out her cheek. "If you actually ask her what her story is, you'll know she's not cool."

"Okay!"Ruby said, and Glynda regretted her last sentence, "Cinder, what's your story?"

"Well," Cinder said. She shifted the cigarette around her mouth. "I was born in the Max Sec Catholic School, having to serve my parent's debt. The catacombs were bereft of materialistic distractions, so I honed my mind in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the brutal Catholic school playgrounds I learned to fight."

Ruby clutched her cheeks. "Wow, just like Bane!"

"If there weren't any materialistic distractions, where'd you learn to play the guitar?" Glynda asked. She was ignored.

"You- you know who Bane is," Cinder stated. She cleared her throat and ran a hand through her hair, nervously. "I may have to start cribbing more obscure backstories."

"And you say you're not a nerd," Glynda said.

"Hey, I never said I wasn't a nerd. I just wanted to make sure your conclusions came from proper logic and from the correct observations."

Ruby waved the air to get Cinder's attention. "So you've spend your childhood learning languages and fighting and stuff?"

"Yes, exactly." Cinder "And with my accumulated knowledges and powers, I began seeking my revenge."

"Wow!"

"Ruby, none of that is true," Glynda said, mildly annoyed. "Cinder, like most of the other orphans in the area, was just taken in by the nunnery and raised under their arguably strict schooling system until thier abailable teachers stopped at the end of middle school and she got sent to the public school system."

"That's still super cool!" Ruby said. Glynda frowned. "What were the nuns like?"

"Old and bitter. I used to think the Mother Superior wanted to destroy the world out of spite." Cinder said. She smirked. "Now I'm sure she does."

Ruby laughed. Glynda grew more annoyed.

"Well," Ruby said. She closed her eyes and put a hand on her chest, "I'm the best reader in all the third grades in the school district, and when I'm growed up ima become an engineer and invent fruit and berry combine harvesters. With guns." Ruby opened her eyes and pointed her fingers at things. "Pew pew."

Glynda was tempted to giggle. Cinder appeared to have been as well, and she gave into the temptation.

"Awww, aren't you just the cutest thing~," Cinder said. She pinched Ruby's cheek.

Ruby's eyes widened and she flailed, ineffectively. "Ahhh!" she said, unable to escape, "Glynda, save me!"

And for the second time, Glynda rushed over and scooped Ruby into her arms. Ruby hugged her torso and pouted at Cinder. Glynda glared.

Cinder looked mildly miffed. "Sorry," she said, "Didn't think cheek touching was such a sore subject."

Ruby rubbed her cheeks. Her eyes were still wet and her face was still a frown.

"You shouldn't touch other peoples faces just out of the blue," Glynda said, justifyably outraged.

Cinder then opted to bite her hand, smiling madly. With her other hand, she gestured to the child in Glynda's arms. "But just look at her! She's just too cute."

Glynda's nose twitched. She turned to her charge, "Ruby, I think you're cute too."

Cinder smirked insufferably, again. "Oh? I didn't realize it was a contest." Cinder turned back to Ruby. "In that case, I think you're cute times infinity."

Both of Glynda's cheeks puffed out, but she refreshed her smile before she turned back to the girl in her arms. "Yeah? Well I think you're cute times the sum of all real and complex numbers between neg- between zero and infinity."

From the ball pit, Yang gave Glynda an 'a-ok' hand sign. Ruby giggled.

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "Is that bigger than infinity?"

"In some systems, yes."

"Very well, then," Cinder gave a nod to Glynda, "I guess you win the contest."

"I-It wasn't a contest. I was just stating a fact."

Ruby laughed and then froze; presumably laughing moved the pinched part of her cheek, because she immediately started rubbing her face. "It's still tingly."

"Oh, Ruby." Glynda blew on her thumb and rubbed Ruby's cheek with it. In restrospect, she didn't know why she thought blowing on her thumb was important; maybe she got that confused with huffing on her glasses to clean them.

"Oh, so Glynders can rub your cheek," Cinder said, pretending to sound hurt.

"Yeah, it's only family members or babysitters who can touch my face," Ruby explained.

"Speaking of which," Cinder asked to Glynda, "When did you become a babysitter? I thought you were working for some sort of evil overlord to destroy the world."

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side. "It was a robotics company. That went under. And since all the other internships were already taken, it was either join Ozpin's ameteur babysitting buisness or become an Elsa impersonator," she said.

She was going to add something about it being a rather difficult choice, but then Ruby said something.

"Well I'm glad you became a babysitter," Ruby said, "Elsa's dumb."

And just like that, Glynda's perfect perfection of Ruby shattered.

Glynda started trying to come up with a way to persuade Ruby out of her wrong opinion, but it turned out, she didn't have to.

"Excuse you," Cinder said. Her voice cracked, almost imperceptibly, "Queen Elsa is a cultural icon and an international treasure."

"Well so was Jefferson Davis, but that doesn't mean he's not dumb."

"Elsa is the sovereign ruler of her own country."

"You're still listing irrelevant qualifiers. There's lots of bad monarchs."

"FIne, I'll cut to the chase," Cinder puffed out her cheek. "Elsa's the most inspiring, relatable Disney princess in their entire canon."

"Pfff," Ruby rolled her eyes, "Someone with magic ice powers is relatable, and someone who spent her whole movie running from her problems is inspiring."

Cinders cheeks reddened. "There's a lot of people who find it hard to love themselves and who feel they will be shunned for their differences, and Elsa's a great role model for them."

"Well if you want one of those, we already got Magneto, and he at least takes his responsibility and agency seriously."

Cinder smirked slightly and tried to change the subject. Ruby wasn't having it.

"And look at how she treats her own sister!" Ruby waved her hands. "If anyone you love suddenly cut you out of their life and pushed you away everytime you tried to reach out, the healthy thing to do is let the be alone and move on to more healthy relationships."

"It's called filial loyalty-"

"Anna had to bury their parents alone!" Ruby said, "Are we just supposed to ignore that? Because Elsa was too sad to be a decent human being?"

Cinder opened and shut her mouth. "That- that is not fair-" She furrowed her brow in thought.

Ruby took the opportunity to go for the kill shot. "Elsa's only popular because too many people think she's cute and vulnerable." Ruby said. She crossed her arms. "Get a better waifu."

Cinder made some choking sounds. "Wha- pfff, nooo, that's- that's not- Well, now who's bringing up irrelevant qualifiers?" Cinder's voice hadn't recovered. Her face was reddening even more.

Glynda must have missed something.

Ruby's expression turned to curiosity. "Wait, is that really the reason you like her?"

Cinder pouted immensely. She picked her unused cigarette off the floor and threw it into a nearby trashcan. She stood up and brushed her self off. "I rescind what I said about you being cute."

Ruby stuck her tongue out at Cinder. "Well, infinity minus one is still infinity, so nyeah!"

Glynda suppressed a victorious chuckle. Cinder bit her lip, packed away her guitar, and left.

After Cinder disapeared into the annals of the corporate machine, Glynda exhaled. "I hate her," she said to Ruby. "So much."

Ruby giggled, and that made Glynda feel bad, somehow. "Nawww, she's pretty cool," Ruby said. She seemed to have already forgotten the shouting match she'd had with a teenager.

"No she's not!" Glynda frowned.

Ruby giggled some more. "Okay, she's only a _little_ cool," Ruby said.

Glynda puffed out her cheek. "But I'm cooler."

Ruby giggled and hugged Glynda's head. It was comforting, somehow. "Of course you are."

* * *

Qrow was impressed with how well this night had gone. He was lounging on a surprisingly comfy Mcdonald's bench, next to his crush, and he'd managed not to act like he was missing a brain, for most of the evening.

"I don't think Penny's had this much fun since," James said, "Well, it's just that she usually has the less exciting kind of fun. Puzzles and stuff."

"Well, if it's any consolation," Qrow leaned back and crossed his legs as best he could to try to give his signature relaxed impression, "Sometimes I wish my nieces would be more into puzzles and stuff."

Ruby took one last run around the playpen, her hands outstretches besides her, when she wasn't climbing pieces of the playpen that weren't supposed to be climbed.

Penny and Yang were splashing each other in the ball pit.

Qrow took a breath. "Well," he said, managing to make eye contact, "You think they'd like to do this again sometime? Like next week? Maybe they'll have the green shakes restocked."

"I think they'd like that." James smiled at Qrow, slightly. "I know I would."

Qrow blinked a couple times. "Well, then it's a date." Qrow managed to say. He immediately had doubts about himself.

James smiled a little more and nodded. "Yes."

Qrow blinked. The he made an excuse to meet up with Ruby and Yang and stop holding in his excitement. For perhaps the first time that evening, he could keep up with his nieces energy.

Then Glynda came to check on them, and Qrow coughed and re-comported himself.

Qrow asked Glynda and Yang if he could have a moment with Ruby. The two blondes agreed, Glynda somewhat reluctantly, and Yang led the babysitter away.

"Um. Ruby, can I ask you something?" Qrow said solemnly. He pulled out the last pack of french fries and threw one into his mouth to procrastinate. He inhaled and exhaled and refreshed his chill. He was an adult. He could just ask Ruby, cut through all the guessing and testing and he could stop obsessing about it.

After Qrow finished his fry, he managed to look his step-niece in the eyes. "Ruby, do you like Glynda more than me?"

Ruby paused for a moment, and then looked mortified. "What?" Ruby said. She then looked contemplative. "Zos that why you've been acting so weird all afternoon?"

Qrow scrunched his mouth to the side. "...maybe."

Ruby hugged his legs. "You'll always be my bestest uncle, Qrow." Qrow made to kneel down, and Ruby released her arms so they could hug for reals.

After they stopped hugging, Qrow took a seat on the bench.

"I don't know what it was," Qrow said, "You guys are my family, and I guess I liked being a mentor."

"And you still are! I still like engineering and agriculture!" Ruby said, "But I like Glynda in a different way." Ruby took a sip from her soda. "You're my mentor and my inspiration, yeah?"

Ruby reached her hands out to Qrow's fries. Qrow plucked the fry Ruby was about to take. Ruby puffed out her cheek for half a second and said "And maybe you're also a big jerk," before she took a different fry. Qrow smirked.

"As for Glynda," Ruby said. She swallowed her fry. "In seven and a half years I'm going to ask her to marry me."

And then it was Qrow's turn to get some french fries stuck in his nose.

"Mr. Branwen," James said. He held out a handful of napkins. "Um. Yes."

"T-thanks," Qrow said. He took the napkins and fixed his nose.

And then James and Penny had to leave, so Yang went to say goodbye to Penny, and Glynda and Ruby stood by awkwardly, trying to ignore the pouty glares from Cinder, who had returned to being a (slightly less composed, compared to before her cigarette break) food corporation stooge.

And Ruby and Yang downed the five remaining french fries. They threw away their wrappers and returned their trays and left to the parking lot.

Qrow drove them back to the house.

"Well," Qrow said, "That took a little longer than I thought, so I think I'll head home now."

Yang turned to her uncle. "You don't want to stay and watch cartoons with us?" Ruby shot her a dirty look.

Qrow waved the air. "Naw, I think I'm good."

Ruby and Yang said their goodbyes.

After they did, Qrow held his hand out to Glynda, looking the sitter straight in the eyes, his expression completely serious. "Take care of them, will ya?

Glynda blinked. She took the hand. "Yes, of course."

And then Qrow left.

"Hey, Ruby," Glynda said.

"Yeah?"

"Why did the pirate chicken cross the ocean?"

"Why?"

"To get to the other tide."

Ruby blinked. She didn't say anything. She didn't laugh.

Glynda blushed. "W-well, let's go watch cartoons, then."

OMAKE 1:

During the evening lull in fast food traffic, the manager of the 24 Hour McDonald's on 5th and Main took her last break before midnight.

She ducked into a stall and let every mask she wore fall away.

Cinder pulled out her phone and flashed a smile, gentle and desperate, at her screensaver, a picture of a pale, blonde woman with icy blue eyes that matched her dress and a confident smile on her face.

"Don't worry, my snowflake," Cinder smooched the screen of her phone and unlocked her phone, swiping along the cheek of picture of the woman, "I'll always love you."

 **OMAKE 2** :

Qrow held the phone away from his head and grimaced. Summer's voice was scary even over the phone. "YOU TOOK THE KIDS TO MCDONALDS!? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW UNHEALTHY THE FOOD THERE IS!?"


	6. The Princess, Pirate, and God-Emperor 1

This is a prequel. It takes 1 year before Glynda got her first gig at the Rose household.

I guarantee no expertise in elementary school, Arabic culture, Islamic immigrants, disability and playgrounds. Especially Arabic culture and disability; I am trying to be as informed and respectful as possible, and I welcome any corrections from the comments.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

She walked outside and looked at the other children; laughing, playing, bounding around together on the play-set or chasing after a ball. Weiss sighed; when was she going to figure out how to make friends?

She approached the swings. Not the new ones; the old set, on the other side of the parking lot, which were old and creaked and of which one of the pair was broken. It was nominally within the view of the supervising teacher, so nobody minded that Weiss spent every recess sitting on the set, staring at the ground, half-heartedly kicking her legs but never enough to generate any appreciable momentum.

Sometimes Weiss wound up the chains of the swing-set, so she would spin in place once she pulled her legs up, but it never helped remove Weiss's frown.

* * *

The bell rang for recess, heralding another lonely half-hour for Weiss. She dragged herself to the swing-set again.

This time, there was someone already there.

It was that weird dark-skinned kid who never talked and was always reading in the corner; The one who always had her hair wrapped up. Blake something.

Mom and Dad said to keep away from people like her, even though Winter said in her letters from Afghanistan that she'd met a lot of nice people like that so far during her tour of duty. But right now, Weiss was most concerned that someone had interrupted her routine.

"Hey, you, weird girl-"

"I'm the weird girl?" said the weird girl, "Aren't you the kid who had to wear an eye-patch for a year? Like a pirate?"

Weiss touched the scar over her left eye. "T-that doesn't matter. What matters is," Weiss manage to say, "What you're doing here, all of a sudden?"

The weird girl looked at the ground. "Teacher said I can't read in the library during recess anymore," she mumbled.

"Well," Weiss said, "You can't sit there. That's my swing."

The girl stuck out her tongue. "Nuh-uh! I was here first!"

"Well, I was here yesterday!" Weiss folded her arms.

"That doesn't count. Dibs reset every recess."

"Oh yeah?" Weiss tried to shove the girl.

The girl grabbed Weiss's hand and jumped out of the swing-set. She pushed Weiss to the ground.

Weiss got back up immediately. Then they fought for real.

Well, as real as elementary kids could get. There was a lot of timid slapping, and some shoving, and at some point Blake jumped on Weiss.

Eventually, the dust settled. Blake had Weiss pinned, on the ground.

"Okay," Weiss pouted. She struggled to no avail; Blake's grip on her wrists was too strong, and Blake was too heavy to shake off. Blake was grinning, which made Weiss pout even more. "Fine, you win. Now get off me."

Blake leaned in closer to Weiss's face and grinned harder. " _ **No.**_ "

Weiss squeaked. Her face grew hot and her breathing heavy.

Blake continued staring, grinning, enjoying seeing Weiss struggle or something.

"So, um," Weiss managed to say, "I guess you've won the swings."

Blake blinked. "Oh. Yes."

Then Blake got up. Weiss rubbed her wrists where Blake held her.

Blake sat on the swing-set and kicked her legs, rocking her forward and back. She laughed.

Weiss couldn't think of anything else to do but sit to the side, with her arms crossed and her face in a frown. Blake was really having fun. Weiss frowned. She hadn't realized how fun the swing could be, and regretted never using it like an actual swing.

* * *

It was another day. Weiss did her schoolwork in the morning. The bell rang for recess, heralding the start of the most important race of Weiss's life, so far.

Weiss eyed Blake a couple minutes before the bell was about to ring. Blake avoided eye contact. She read her book with a smug smile on her stupid face.

Then the bell rang, and they two girls ran.

Weiss wasn't un-athletic. Her parents had her take gymnastics and ballet and fencing, and she was still just in the fourth grade.

But for some reason, Blake was just as fast. Maybe even faster, under certain circumstances. They were neck and neck during the sprint from the edge of the school to the ancillary playground.

Weiss jumped and grabbed the seat of the wet. "Ha!: Weiss panted. She smiled in victory, as much as she was able to while out of breath. "I won!"

"Nuh-uh!" Blake said, "I touched the poles first. That's part of the swing."

Weiss pouted. "That doesn't count! They're closer than the seat!"

"That's why I went for them." Blake smirked. She tapped her head. "You just gotta be smarter then the swing. Which you're not!" Blake stuck her tongue out.

Weiss thought she could argue her position, but she felt a pounding in her heart when she considered that she had lost to Blake again.

* * *

And Blake kept winning engagements, afterwards. When the opportunity came up where Blake and Weiss got to compete, like who was better at math or who could say the alphabet the fastest, Blake would win and stick her tongue out at Weiss, and Weiss would smush her lips together and nurse a throbbing in her chest.

And every time Weiss tried to talk to Blake, the dark-skinned girl would insult Weiss, usually without looking up from her book, and Weiss wouldn't just stifle a cry in her throat but also resist the urge to smile and shudder.

Because every time Blake called Weiss stinky or illiterate or short it just made Weiss more obsessed with her, and every-time Blake physically overpowered Weiss, it made the rich girl feel weird in her chest, but in a way she decided she liked.

* * *

And then, one day at lunch, Weiss approached the bookworm as she was reading.

"H-hey, Blake." Weiss said to the ground.

Blake didn't look up from her book. "Oh, Weiss. I thought I smelled something bad."

Weiss smushed her lips together. Then she cleared her throat.

"Hey, I showered yesterday," Weiss said, with a bit of pride. It was such an adult thing to do.

"Guess you're not good at showering, then, because you're still stinky. Add that to the list of things you're bad at. Which is everything."

Weiss clutched her chest.

Blake resumed reading her book.

"S-so," Weiss managed to say, "I brought you something, Blake-"

"You what?" Blake looked up from her book. She eyed the box that Weiss was offering.

"I-it's a lunch," Weiss said. She smiled. "I made it myself."

"So it's poison."

Weiss pouted. "No it's not! I worked my hardest on it!"

"Then it's unintentionally poison. Because you're bad at cooking.

"Nuh-uh!" Weiss said. She opened the box, revealing the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she'd worked so hard on.

"Actually, uh," Weisss said, as she thought of something. She got really embarrassed by the possibility. "I hope you're not allergic to peanuts."

Blake looked between her book and Weiss and the lunch. "I'm not. But I don't know if it's poison, so you take a bite out of it.

Weiss looked down at her sandwich. It was supposed to be for Blake, but she couldn't disobey her...

Weiss took a bite-

And Blake stole the sandwich from out of her hands.

"If you're willing to eat it, then I guess it's not poisonous." Blake took a bit from the sandwich. Her bite intersected Weiss's, and that knowledge made Weiss's face grow hot, a little.

"I suppose this gift is adequate," Blake said.

Then Blake scrunched her mouth. She dug through her backpack and pulled out a book with a robot on the cover.

"Here. You can have this book. I already read it, and it's not poison."

Weiss's eyes grew wide. "Blake, no- I couldn't-"

"Fine, then you can just borrow it." Blake looked at the wall and pouted. "And don't get the wrong idea; I never let a debt go unpaid. It's not because I like you or anything."

Weiss gingerly took the paperback from Blake's outstretched hands. She didn't really read, and she wasn't into sci-fi, but she read the whole thing three times before she returned it.

* * *

Weiss would point to that moment as the beginning of becoming friends with Blake.

True, Blake would still insult her and make fun of how she smelled, but it became less and less harsh. Or, perhaps, more harsh, because Weiss seemed to like that, but Blake also tempered that with back-handed compliments and, occasionally, genuine compliments. They made Weiss feel weird inside in a different way, so Weiss appreciated those moments as well.

Over the next few weeks, Weiss learned a lot about Blake. She learned that Blake was adopted and that she liked to read and that she had a bunch of foster siblings. Her parents were lawyers or something, which was another group of people that Weiss's parents warned her about, but Blake was starting to think that maybe her parents were wrong.

And Weiss told Blake a few things about herself, as well. She liked dogs, but she didn't dislike cats, and she liked to sing. And she told Blake a big secret about herself; the scar over her eye she hated so much was from playing with a knife.

Blake didn't insult Weiss for telling that secret. Instead, Blake ran her finger across Weiss's scar, and she blushed and stuttered and told the smaller girl that the scar made her look cool.

* * *

The bell rang for recess, heralding another race to the swing set.

Blake won the race, like always. Weiss panted and feigned sadness at losing and prepared herself to watch Blake play on the swing.

Blake's face reddened, just a bit, and she looked off into the distance. "You can sit on the swing today, if you want," Blake said.

"But you won the race, fair and square."

"I always win the race, because I'm better than you," Blake said, "But I also have better morals, so I'm allowing you to have a taste of the swing-set. Just this once."

Weiss smiled, sheepishly. "Well, I don't know-"

"This is such great gift, Weiss. Don't tell me you're the ungrateful sort."

Weiss's mouth wobbled. "I- uh-"

Blake looked upset. "Fine! I'll even push you. But this is the last time I'm offering."

Weiss's mouth went ultra-wobbly. Her heart jumped into her throat. "Okay," she managed to say.

And Weiss gingerly sat her butt down on the swing set, and then Blake put her hands on Weiss' lower back. Her hands felt warm, through Weiss's' clothes.

And Blake didn't push her off the seat, like Weiss hoped worried she would. Actually, Weiss got a respectable boost from Blake pushing her.

And after a few iterations, Weiss was soaring through the sky, restrained by the chains of the swing, though, but soaring nonetheless. Perhaps the feeling of flying came, in part, from Blake's touch.

Weiss's mouth curved into a smile. She laughed, in joy.

* * *

And one day, during recess, Blake and Weiss just lay on the ground, next to each other. By now, they had taken turns pushing each other on the swingset, but soon the play apparatus lost its charm. The two girls lay looked at the sky, pointing at clouds, though Weiss would occasionally turn to look at Blake.

"So do you want to play on the swings again?" Weiss said.

"We already did that," Blake lamented.

Weiss turned to Blake. "So is there anything you really want to do?"

Blake was silent for a moment. "I always wanted to be a princess," she said, eventually.

"Nah. princesses aren't so great," Weiss said.

Blake turned to Weiss. Her face was aghast. "How can you say that? You must be dumb as well as stinky."

Weiss smushed her mouth together. "My parents got me a tiara a few years ago, and it kept falling off. I can bring it tomorrow, if you want?"

Blake bit her lip. "I-idiot. What person wouldn't want that?"

* * *

The next day, before recess, Weiss presented her princess tiara to Blake. Blake looked at it in wonder, running her fingertips along it's length.

Blake removed her head wrappings. She had a beautiful cascade of wavy black hair that went down below her shoulders.

Blake swished her head back and forth, further enrapturing Weiss.

Weiss blinked a few times and swallowed. "Are you allowed to take that off?"

"Mum says I don't actually have to wear it until I'm twelve, and even then, and until then, it's a personal choice." Blake said. She handed Weiss the wrappings and put the tiara on her head. "How's it look?"

Weiss smiled. "Perfect."

Blake blushed at the wall. "Y-you idiot. Nothing's perfect."

When Blake wasn't looking, Weiss stuck the scarf below her nose and inhaled. It smelled like strawberry shampoo and sweat. Weiss shuddered.

But Weiss had an idea. She wrapped the length of cloth around her head. She posed for Blake.

"How do I look?" Weiss said. She was prepared to be called dumb or ugly.

Blake scrunched her mouth to the side. "Sort of like a Barbary Corsair."

Weiss titled her head. "What's that?"

"They were pirates, in the Ottoman Empire."

Weiss smiled. "Heehee, that sounds great."

"Really?" Blake said, "I thought you hated being called a pirate, after last year?"

Weiss shrugged. "Maybe it's grown on me."

"But pirates are lawless," Blake thought aloud, "And I don't know if I like the idea of you roaming the seas, beholden to nobody."

"Well, then I can be your captain," Weiss waved her arms, "I will be an admiral in your employ, my princess."

Blake blushed and smiled, avoiding eye contact. "i-idiot. But if you want to do that, I guess I'll allow it."

* * *

The bell rang for recess, heralding the first day of the reign of Arch-princess Blake Belladonna.

Blake and Weiss ran to the play set. There were two layers of elevated platforms, connected by plastic slides and monkey bars and stepping blocks, and a climbing net and all sorts of cool

Blake ran up to the tallest tower, while Weiss grabbed on to one of the lower vertical poles and leaned as far as she could out away from it, like a pirate on a mast.

* * *

 _Grand Admiral Weiss Schnee looked up to the castle that belonged to the most beautiful princess in the land. "Oh princess, my princess," she exclaimed._

 _And Arch-princess Blake Belladonna looked down and smiled a smile that could warm a thousand hearts, "My sweet corsair," she gestured with graceful arms, " Will thou protect me, with all your strength?"_

 _The Admiral gestured grandly. "Of course, m'lady!"_

 _"And willst though serve me, with all thou heart?"_

 _The Admiral laughed like gently crashing waves upon the shore. "Of course, m'lady."_

 _And the Princess grinned a mischievous grin. "And will thou obey me, with all of thou body?"_

 _The Admiral couldn't help but smile. "Of course, my princess. Anything for you."_

 _"Oh, my captain," exclaimed the Princess. Then she coughed. "I mean, that is good. I am glad I can depend on you."_

And Weiss found that which could always remove her frown. And Blake, though she wouldn't admit it, had found her favorite person in the world.

* * *

 _Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose looked over the occupied castle, breeming with the tell-tale signs of foreign occupation._

 _"And what," she spat, "Is this abomination? This blight upon my domain? This insult to my reign?"_

 _Grand Vizier Yang Xaio-long bowed, next to the Sankt-Kaiser. "It appears that one Blake Belladonna has occupied the southern ruins and assumed the title of Arch-princess."_

 _The Sankt-Kaiser's nostril's flared. "An Arch-Princess? She seeks not just her own domain, but that of all others! Such arrogance must be met with overwhelming force. And such personal affronts to_

 _Me," And the Kaiser grinned wickedly, sending a billious chill down her advisor's spine, "Must be made impossible to repeat, with any cruelty necessary."_

 _Ruby turned to her subjects. "DO YOU SEE?" Ruby yelled, "What happens when we allow the wretches to encroach upon our world? When we lose our vigilance for but a moment? Interlopers steal what is rightfully ours, and vermin play where we once laughed."_

 _The Kaiser's minions trembled before her._

 _Ruby looked out before her and posed._

 _"This will be a reckoning upon her so-called kingdom." Ruby shot her hand out, pointing forward. "BRING THEIR EMPIRE TO DUST."_


	7. The Princess, Pirate, and God-Emperor 2

_Arch-princess Blake Belladonna surveyed her realms. She was finally the princess of her own castle, and . She was an excellent princess, as she always knew she would be, and it was a dream come true to preside over her own kingdom, to bask in the admiration of her loyal subjects._

 _And among her loyal subjects, non were more loyal, more gentle, and more corporeal than Grand Admiral Schnee._

 _"Oh Princess," Weiss called out, "No star shines as bright as you! As I sail the seas, you will be the light that guides me home!"_

 _"This pleases me," the princess said. She gave her Admiral a smile, and it was enough._

 _And they did typical fairy tale things, and it was good._

* * *

"Ah-" Blake said. She grabbed the tiara on her head before it fell off.

"Ah- " Weiss reached out too, and then she fumbled around in her pocket for a bobby pin, and she affixed the tiara to Blake's head.

Blake adjusted her crown and straightened her posture and clasped her hands in front of her.

* * *

On the nearby playset, A young girl squirrelled out under her hoodie and tied its arms around her neck, so it billowed out like a cape. The long sleeved shirt she wore under it was black, and her leggings were also black.

Five other children made their way around her, as Recess progressed, and once they were assembled, Ruby climbed up on a piece of play equipment and posed, imperiously.

* * *

 _On a distant hill, the fiendish rogue Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose gazed upon the affront to her dominion, Her arms folded, her cape billowing in the wind._

 _"Suffer not usurpers," The Kaiser intoned. She gestured, dramatically. "Drive them from our lands. Slay them where they stand, and till their corpses into the soil to plant the seeds of our empire. Make an example of them."_

 _"Yes, my liege!" Cried out the Kaiser's holy minions. They charged._

* * *

 _The alarm rang in the kingdom of Arch-Princess Blake, for the castle was under attack._

 _As the minions of the Rose Imperium approached, and through diligence and cunning, the Royal Navy kept the invaders at bay._

* * *

"Ahhhh!" Weiss screamed, as Pyrrha and Ren grabbed at her shirt. She escaped them, and she managed to dodge and shove Pyrrha out of the way and retreat to a higher level on the playset. They couldn't get up with Weiss blocking them.

* * *

 _On the distant hill, Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose looked out over the ensuing battle._

 _"My Kaiser, this isn't accomplishing anything," said the Grand Vizier. "Surely this is unnecessary?"_

 _"Method within madness; that is genius," said the Kaiser, "And don't you worry your little head. I will end this shortly, myself."_

* * *

While Blake was distracted, Ruby climbed up the outside of the playset, along pieces of scaffolding that really weren't meant to be climbed. So Blake didn't see the ambush coming.

* * *

 _Princess Blake fought her hardest, alongside her royal corsair, but she saw the battle sway in her enemies favor._

 _The Princess turned towards her secret escape route; a tunnel that led out of the castle. While she hoped to never abandon her kingdom, she knew that the lives of her subjects were more important than any edifice of stone and mortar. Thus, she determined to retreat, to live to fight another day-_

 _But the Kaiser was there, arms folded, looming blocking her path._

 _Blake prepared herself for the fight. "You may be more powerful than I," She said, "But I only need to escape, and one person cannot detain me."_

 _"Hahaha. You underestimate my genius, usurper," said the Kaiser._

* * *

"Ahhh-" Blake yelled, as Ruby tackled her, into the circular plastic slide. You really weren't supposed to go down the slide head first, and you definitely weren't supposed to go down a slide while being grappled by another kid.

Jaune and Nora pulled Blake to her feet when she emerged at the bottom of the playset.

And on that day, Arch Princess Blake was taken prisoner by the rogueish fiend Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose.

* * *

 _Kaiser Rose cackled maniacally over the fallen form of the Arch Princess. Yet Arch-princess Blake, like a true princess, still kept her regal composure and her ethereal grace, even under the_

 _"Please have mercy," begged the Princess. "You have won; you have nothing to gain through further bloodshed-"_

 _"Mercy would be bad for my reputation," said the Kaiser. "And besides; you stole my castle-"_

 _"There are many castles!-"_

 _"And they all belong to me."_

 _"Please," said Princess Blake. "We only wanted to play-"_

 _"Then you only have your hubris to blame." The minions nodded in assent. "What you need," said the Kaiser. and she took a menacing step towards the captive princess, "Is an eternal reminder of your treason."_

 _"Please-"_

 _"You're Blake Belladonna, correct? You beat me out in last summer's reading competition," The Kaiser smirked, evilly, "I ought to ensure that never happens again."_

 _The Princess blinked, in shock, at the enormity of what the Kaiser asked of her. She looked to the ground and shed a single tear. "Very well; I shall forsake reading. I ask of only one thing, in return."_

 _"You are in no position to bargain-"_

 _"Let's hear it out, at least," Said the Grand-Vizier_

 _Blake looked up, to her captor, "Allow my admiral to leave, unharmed. And I will do whatever you wish of me."_

 _"I can give her a 5 minute head start," said Kaiser Rose._

 _"No," insisted the Princess, "You must ensure her safety. You must."_

 _The Vizier turned to her Kaiser. "Surely we can spare that much."_

 _Sankt-Kaiser Rose thought for a long while. Blake held her breath._

 _"Very well," said the Kaiser, "Your Admiral will have her freedom as you are forever chained. A fair trade."_

 _But then, Admiral Weiss in question approached the circle of minions. "Princess!" she cried out._

 _Two of the Imperium's minions grabbed Weiss's arms, but Weiss fought through, desperately reaching out to her princess, "Let her go! Take me instead!" said the Grand Pirate Weiss._

 _"It would be a poor trade," laughed the Kaiser, "You are largely worthless."_

 _The Kaiser's minions laughed. Blake protested._

 _"But- Blake isn't suited for torture," said Grand Admiral Weiss, "Wouldn't you- wouldn't you rather have someone who can bear your dark machinations?"_

 _"Well, it's no good if you like it," said the Kaiser, "What's the point of torturing you if you like it?"_

 _"But I wouldn't! I- I normally don't like being tortured-"_

 _"But clearly, you would prefer that we take you instead of this false princess. And I'm not in the business of giving my enemies what they want," said the Kaiser._

 _"Wait!" The admiral cried out, straining against the grip of the Kaiser's minions, "Then let me at least say one last thing to my Princess, before you take her away?"_

 _"No." The Kaiser waved her arms. "Dispose of her!-"_

 _"Belay that!" said the Vizier. She turned to the Kaiser, "Surely it would be more cruel to give the Princess one last reminder of the love she'll never get to feel again?"_

 _Sankt-Kaiser Rose rubbed her chin. "Very well," she gestured to her minions, "Let her through."_

 _"Princess!" cried the corsair, as she ran and fell to the feet of her princess, "Don't don't do all this just for my sake! You can't let them do that to you-"_

 _The Kaiser waved a hand. "Alright, you said your peace. Now get them!"_

 _"No, let them finish," Said the Grand Vizier Yang. She held up a hand (the only one she had)._

 _"I'm- I'm not worth it," Weiss sobbed, "Don't give up reading, just for me. You can't."_

 _"Weiss," said Blake. She ran a hand through Weiss's hair, "Of course you're worth it."_

 _The admiral's heart swelled up, but she didn't forget her resolve._

 _Sankt-Kaiser Rose stuck out her tongue and made a gagging motion. "Alright, now you've said your peace-"_

 _"Wait!" The Admiral cried, once more, "One more thing-"_

 _"You already had 'one more thing'-"_

 _"Just let them finish!" said the vizier. Her hand was to her mouth, and tears were in her eyes and she looked on in awe._

 _The Admiral stood, and took the Princess's hands in her own._

 _"Before you go, I have one, one last thing to tell you," whispered Admiral Weiss._

 _And Princess Blake leaned forward, her attention on what would next fall from her admiral's lips, and the rest of the world- the invaders, the Kaiser- they didn't seem to matter, in just this moment-_

Weiss grabbed Blake's hand right hand in her left, and she pulled the taller girl towards the sparse part of the circle of bullies.

"Run!" Weiss yelled.

They broke through the blockade, barely escaping the reflexive grabs of some of the meaner kids.

"No!" cried Ruby, "Nooooooooo! Get them, you fools!"

They ran. Weiss didn't look back, but she didn't need to, because she could feel Blake squeezing her hand tight.

And they ran-

And ran-

And ran and ran and ran.

Until they made it to the broken swing-set on the far side of the parking lot.

Weiss held her arm out against the swing set for support, as she doubled over, panting. Blake was in a similar state of exhaustion.

Eventually, Weiss found the breath to speak. "I suppose this will have to be our castle, huh?"

"I- {pant} suppose, it's better than {pant} nothing-{ wheeze}"

"So," Weiss said, between breaths, "Are you going to christen it?"

"I can't," Blake said. "You touched it first, so it's yours, today."

"Well, in that case, I bequeath it to you, my Princess." Weiss bowed.

"I'm afraid I must refuse," Blake said, "I don't want my own castle, anymore."

Blake took Weiss's hands in her own. "Let it be _our_ castle. We can share it."

Weiss smiled, the happiness rising out of her chest. Blake blushed, and looked away, and let go of Weiss's hands.

* * *

In the distance, Ruby glared at the pair and shook her fist in the air. Blake and Weiss couldn't hear exactly what she was saying, but it was likely something about vengeance.

"I'm sorry," Blake said. She looked into the distance. "For putting you through all that."

"It's okay," Weiss said. She smiled, at the ground, before managing to make eye contact with Blake. "I had a lot of fun! Because. I. Um." Weiss refreshed her eye contact, "I really like you, Blake. Really."

Blake's face turned red. Her mouth wobbled. "W-well, that's dumb. _You're_ dumb. And gross! And you stink!"

Weiss suppressed a smile, "Okay."

"I mean it! You stink so bad!"

Weiss suppressed a blush and a giggle.

* * *

And three months later, somehow, Weiss, Blake, Ruby, and Yang all became friends.


	8. The Perfect Party, So She'll Love Me 1

It's a little late. Ruby usually doesn't stay up this late, because she's a Responsible Girl. But it's Mommy's night off, and Ruby wants to spend time with her. She'll stay up late to hang out with people she likes.

Ideally, though, hanging out would involve all members being awake.

"Mommy, Mommy, this is a plot episode," Ruby shakes the adult who was, nominally, holding her. 'Nominally' means 'in name only', and once you're asleep, it's harder to hold people, because your arms go limp. Ruby adjusts the arm around her back, to snuggle up closer.

"W-wah? I'm awake," Mommy mumbles. She wakes up, nominally.

She wipes her drool on her doctors coat. Ruby pulls her left hand into her sleeve and helps Mommy clean her face. Mommy smiles at her (!).

"Mommy, this is a plot episode..."

"Yeah, I'm paying attention. The big robots learned that the rounds robots were, something, I think..."

A good girl wouldn't doubt or contradict her Mommy, so Ruby doesnt.

"Also, you said you wanted to talk with Taiyang when he got back from Spain?"

"Wh~ yeah..."

"He's been here for ten minutes."

Mommy awakes then, for reals. She sits up, suddenly. Ruby is jostled. "Huh- Tai-tai! You're here!"

Taiyang waves, awkwardly, from the other couch.

Mommy squints. "And you didn't say anything?"

Ruby thinks that it's good that Taiyang doesn't mention that they tried, when he came in.

"Well, Ruby and I took the opportunity to catch up, real quick."

"That's good," Mommy says, "Your flight went well?"

"Yeah."

"You get the contract?"

"Yeah, actually-"

"So Taiyang," Mommy says, "You may notice that Raven's staying with us," she says.

"I- I told her that it'd be up to you-"

"So youxre okay with her being here." Mommy asks, though it doesn't sound like a question.

Taiyang makes a smile. "Ummmm. Yes?

"Ok," Mommy says, "Why?"

"S-she seems like she's changed, and it does look like she wants to help Yang..."

Mommy's satisfied with that answer. They go back to watching TV, and Ruby discusses some of the backstory with Taiyang.

* * *

Later, during a filler episode, Ruby musters up the courage to go see Raven in her room. She climbs out under Mommy's arm, and Mommy doesn't notice. Taiyang agrees to cover for her.

Since she's always wearing a hoodie, Ruby doesn't have to change to go outside, and Raven parked right next to the walkway, so Its a shirt walk, but Ruby put on her slippers to reduce the probability of stepping in a rock, or similar uncomfortable foot related situations.

Ruby opens the front door and walks towards the door to Raven's room. She knocks on the back of the van. It clangs, deeply.

"Come in!" says Raven.

Since Ruby's a Big Girl- where 'big' means 'mature and responsible and partaking in the relevant parts of adulthood', she doesn't have to have someone open doors for her. However, she's not quite a big girl- where big means 'having width, girth, or length ' but even still, she can open car doors by herself. Eventually. So she does.

Raven is upside-down, in her underwears, partially falling off of a seat in the side of the van. It resembles a couch, which means 'a place where you watch TV with people you like'. Raven has a guitar, and she's strumming it.

Ruby inhales and puts on her imperious face. imperious means 'powerful and imposing'.

"Hello, Raven," Ruby states. She puts her hands behind her back and stands up ramrod straight. Here, 'ramrod' means 'intimidating.'

Raven twists into an upright position. "Hey Ruby, It's good to see yo-"

"Please do not get too familiar, Raven. I am here on business."

Raven covers her mouth with her fingertips. "Oh, are you?"

"You are patronizing me, Raven."

"Am I?" Raven continues to patronize her. Ruby furrows her brow to show disapproval.

"I shall remind you, Raven, that Mommy likes me best."

"I- " Raven's face falls. Haha, victory! "Are you threatening me, Ruby?"

"I am simply stating facts, Raven. I encourage you to take them into consideration before you speak, Raven."

Raven sits up straight. "Of course. I don't want to hurt your feelings, in any way. You're as much my daughter as Yang is-"

"Spare me the white lies, Raven,"

"I-"

Raven sighs. Then she closes her eyes and smiles. "Very well. I won't pretend I don't like Yang best."

Ruby nods. "Personally, I love that Yang has a Mommy in her life, now. I bear you no ill will."

"Well, that doesn't mean I don't care about you at all." Raven looks to her guitar and strums a g major arpeggio. "So what can I help you with?"

"I came because of things within your expertise and which I require, and would like to negotiate for your services. One of which is throwing parties-"

Raven looks up and smirks. "You want me to throw a party?"

"Yes. An adult party."

Ravens mouth opens and she looks embarrassed.

"A garden party."

"A gar- oh! Yes. That is the kind of parties adults throw. What's the occasion?"

Ruby's voice only wavers for only a moment. "Since we're being so honest, I wanted a venue to show off all my friends to someone special-"

"Oh! Your favorite babysitter," Raven says.

Ruby's reaction betrays her, though she says nothing.

Raven smiles. It's annoying. "Of course. To repay the favor. And 'cause I love you."

Ruby lets that one slide. Just this once.

Raven cogitates. 'Cogitate' means 'taps her chin and tries to think as best she can'.

"You know, yeah. Yeah. I'm totally on board. This will be good." Raven stops cogitating. "Yeah. Anything else?"

Now it's Ruby's turn to cogitate.

"Can you teach me guitar?"

Raven looks at the guitar in her lap, and at a smaller guitar in the pile of miscellaneous possessions in her room. "Um. I don't know. I don't know if Yang would appreciate me teaching you something she won't be able to do..."

"That is a valid consideration. I withdraw my request."

"Yeah, sorry. Anything else?"

"Well," Ruby says, "can you help me cook something?"

* * *

Glynda rubbed her face on her desk. It was the free period before lunch, she was kind of tired, even though she hadn't babysat the previous night, and she was kind of done with homework. Surrounding her were other students, not doing homework, most of them unimportant enough that Glynda only knew their first names. Junior and Adam where chatting to Roman, who, ever since he had been cast as the British Singer in their school's production of _Cabaret,_ used that as an excuse to wear a top-hat and twirl a cane around. He also was sitting on his desk, which had always been a habit of his even before this semester's casting decisions. Cinder was nearby, checking something on her phone, an unlit cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

Ozpin was having some sort of philosophical discussion with their two other friends, Bart and Peter (who were important enough that Glynda did know their last names, but that was weird to call them that, right? {Ozpin's was a whole different deal})

Then, at some point, the class representative walked in. Amber something. "Package for you, Glynda," she said, and she handed Glynda a box, wrapped with a relatively fancy polka-dot patterned handkerchief and set with a large red bow.

Glynda looked up slightly. "What?"

"It was instructed to be delivered right before lunch time. So. Here you go."

Glynda adjusted her glasses. Someone sent her a gift? What? Who would do that? And why?

Then Amber turned to the class delinquent, a frown on her face. "Cinder-"

"'s not lit," Cinder said, tapping the cigarette in her mouth. "Just a compulsion, ya know?"

Amber sighed, but she didn't say anything else before left.

In the meantime, Glynda opened the box. There was a bag of cookies and a ben-to tin. She imagined that the contents glowed.

And, apparently, everyone else in the room imagined it glowed too, because when Glynda looked up, her desk was surrounded by her friends and a bunch of people unimportant enough that she only knew their first names.

"Woah," Junior said, "That's pretty intricate."

"Did you get a boyfriend or something?" Adam asked. "One who loves you enough to send you lunch?"

Cinder grabbed an envelope that Glynda just realized had come with the package. "Not unless 'Ruby' is a boys name now."

"Oh Glynda," Roman smirked insufferably, "I always knew you played for the right team. Cinder and I had a pool going-"

"It's not like that!" Glynda protested. At the edge of the group, Ozpin smirked.

"Then you won't mind if I read this for you?" Cinder said.

"Give that back Cinder, you rascal!" Glynda yelled.

Cinder cackled as she weaved between desks.

Bart lowered his center of gravity and spread his arms out, to intercept. Cinder feinted right, and Bart jumped right, and Cinder spun and stepped over the defeated student. "Psyche!" Cinder yelled.

Ozpin and Peter then managed to surround Cinder, so the delinquent tossed the envelope to her ally with the highest ground, which was Roman, because he had jumped onto a desk. He caught the envelope and posed.

Port tried to shake Roman off the desk by jostling it, but theater kids had a balance bonus when standing on furniture, so he maintained position until he could hand the letter off to Junior-

Who immediately got tackled by Peter.

The letter landed on the ground. Ozpin was closest to it but then-

Adam flung his sketchbook into the air. He touched his finger to his brow and intoned the name of his special move, and duplicate white envelopes fluttered down, landing all around the real letter. Ozpin picked up decoy envelopes for just long enough for Cinder to leapfrog over him and grab the correct one.

A piece of chalk exploded in front of Cinder, because by this point, Glynda had made it to the black board to a handful of chalk, and having A's in all your classes gave you affinity with school supplies. "Give it up Cinder. Your team's incapacitated."

Adam raised a hand, but Ozpin then made Glynda's statement true.

"Why Glynders, you forget the most effective move in the delinquent's skillset," Cinder said. She then just _opened the envelope_. "It's called 'Cheating'."

Glynda's mouth popped open and she reached out, but not in time for Cinder's faction to group up in a defensive formation around her.

"'Dearest Glynda,'" Cinder began, her voice an exaggerated southern drawl, "'I hope my gift of lunch and cookies has reached you. I truly hope you like it. Additionally, it is my honor to cordially invite ya to a formal soiree tomorrow afternoon-"

"oooh, that's definitely some sort of significant other."

"What a sultry side, our beloved Glynda sought to hide from us."

"It's not like that!" Glynda said. Her cheeks felt hot. She managed to walk up and snatch the letter out of Cinder's hand, "and mind your own business!"

Glynda walked back to her desk, her eyes closed and her glasses starting to fog up.

After she sat down, Glynda looked over the invitation for real, silently. A garden party? That sounded really fun, actually.

But she would have to wait to fantasize about it until all these people who weren't important enough for her to know their last names weren't looking at her.

The lunch looked really good, though. It'd been a while since Glynda had had sushi.

"Also," Glynda said, "I was going to share these cookies, but then you all invaded my privacy."

Cinder, Junior, Adam, and Roman burst into fits of apologies with varying levels of whinyness.

"Alright, fine," Glynda said, "Since I'm so kindhearted, you can have one cookie-"

The four of them leaned forward and started babbling platitudes.

"-to share."

Glynda handed Cinder a single cookie.

Cinder blinked at the cookie, then glanced at her friends, and then she laughed, nervously.

And then they turned into some sort of cartoonish dogpile, because selfishness was a quality of evil.

Glynda closed her eyes and enjoyed her cookies.

* * *

OMAKE

"Can you teach me to play the guitar?" Ruby asks.

"Eh," Raven shrugs, "why not? Did you have a song you wanted to learn?

Ruby smiles. "Ooooh, can you teach me 'Stacy's Mom'?"

Raven blinks. "I'm going to say 'nooooooooo'."

"Then, how about 'Mrs Robinson'?"

"Nuh-uh."

Ruby cogitates. "The 'Winnie the Pooh' theme song?"

"That one, no problem."


	9. The Perfect Party, So She'll Love Me 2

I garentee no expertise in garden parties, flirting with your crush at a garden party, parenting, dating, romance, handling adults, I am trying to be as sensitive as possible about race and religious identity. I apologize if I offend and readers, and I welcome any corrections.

I'm taking some liberties with the Modern AU incarnation of Blake's family. I had the notes pre-season 4 (I am such a slow writer), so it's not quite canon-analogous, but like, I've read more non-canonical fics that were more popular, so eh.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

Glynda pulled up to the immaculate house (with the slightly less immaculate van parked out front- well, not that she was one to judge, but the band symbols and anime girls painted on the outside sort of clashed with the general aesthetic of the Rose household) where the party was to take place. Today she was just a house guest, rather than a temporary steward of the residence charged with the care of its residents.

A garden party, she surmised, was something of a formal party, so it'd behoove her to dress somewhat formally. Glynda picked out a white sundress with pink accents, though the implication that it would be outdoors informed some of the fashion decisions, such as Glynda's sun hat and her functional boots that she hoped looked formal enough to go with the rest of the outfit.

And she was the first one here, apparently. Well, early bird gets the worm. And being the first one to a party means that she had the most time to... do party things. Yes. She just had to figure out what those party things were.

A side gate Glynda had never walked through was left open, and there were three balloons and a sign directing guests to follow a stepping stone path through a small garden with some well-tended hedge and some rose bushes (haha, Glynda understood that joke) until she came across another fence gate into the back yard proper.

But before the teenager got to that point, she was interrupted by some yelling.

"Glynda!" said a woman, suddenly.

Glynda turned, just in time to see Mrs. Ros- Raven jump up right to her. Glynda forgot to flinch.

She looked kind of out of place, in an evening gown. The tattoos on her arms stuck out a bit, and her hair seemed barely tamed but slightly more brushed than normal, and she was wearing makeup that accented her eyes.

Glynda made eye contact. "Hello Raven. I thank you for inviting me."

"Aww, of course!"

Glynda got pulled into a hug-

And you know, Raven's dress was a little low cut, and the adult woman wasn't, like, _un_ endowed, per se, and apparently she moisturized pretty thoroughly, or maybe her skin was just naturally so soft-

Eventually Glynda's brain registered that Raven had released her from the hug, and had thanked her for coming, that Ruby was really excited to see her, and that the adult woman was so, so excited to work at her new job, and thanks so much to Glynda for getting her an interview and that Raven owed her one as a result.

Glynda blinked, and adjusted her glasses.

"Well, I figured, you were into music, right? Summer mentioned something about you performing for the Dalai Lama once?"

Raven tilted her head to the side. "The Dalai- OH! No, I didn't play for the _Dalai_ Lama. It was Wally Lama, the mascot for the East Southbrook Llamas." She looked into the distance and, presumably, reminisced.

Glynda blinked. "Oh. Okay. Well, I figured, if you were so into music, it'd make sense that you'd work for some kind of music retailer, rather than as a janitor, so I just asked my friend Ozp- Oscar if he had any connections." Glynda waved the air, "It's not so big a deal you need to thank me or anything. I really didn't do all that much.

"Don't sell yourself short, Glynda," Raven slapped Glynda's shoulder. "It's more than I managed to get, ahahhaa,"

Raven sweated, and a brief, familiar look of existential dread flashed across her face. "Anyway, it's actually really fun, selling CDs and giving teenagers my opinions of musical artists and stuff. Actually, I brought my guitar in one time and manage to impress the owner, so I might even be giving guitar lessons at some point- but that's getting ahead of things- today, we're here to party."

Raven winked and elbowed her, "And Ruby'll be out in a bit, don't worry." Raven blinked, and her expression turned perplexed, "You're here, like, really early, though."

Glynda rubbed the back of her head. "Well, I didn't want to be late..." She coughed, and stood up straight and brushed off the hem of her dress. "Well, I guess, in the mean time what can I help with?"

Raven smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that-" she led the teenager into into the backyard.

* * *

Glynda was vaguely aware of the back garden to the Rose estate, but most of the time her charges had preferred to stay in the living room watching cartoons, or sometimes their bedrooms staging elaborate military campaigns with plush and/or plastic toys. The backyard itself was also well groomed, and rather large; it sloped down in the kind of gentle hill slope that was steep enough to roll down, if you were childish enough to do that, and there were three trees at different intervals that looked a little too young to be climbable. (Wait, if Rose was always working and Raven had just moved in recently, who tended the garden and the yard?). Glynda didn't actually know enough about trees to be sure, but if someone told her that those trees had been planted recently, she'd believe them.

There was also a smattering of lawn chairs, a table under a rectangular umbrella with a spread of finger food, and a little ways away, downwind of everything, and there was a grill, being manned by some sort of blonde guy.

"Ok, so, I got the dinner spread out, the snacks are good, the punch is cold, my guitar's tuned. Summer's going to bring the Pinata once she gets back from work, and-" Raven snapped her fingers, "Actually, I need to grab the banners- you can help me set those up real quick, right?- I'll just grab those real quick-"

And Raven sprinted off.

Glynda coughed. Well, now she was by herself in a yard that wasn't owned by someone related to her, and she felt a little awkward.

There was one other person in the yard, at the moment- the blonde man setting up some hot dogs and hamburger patties.

So, because it'd be awkward to stand around without saying anything, especially after he glanced back and made eye contact (And then turned back to the grill, like he was also awkward)

Well. It wouldn't do for Glynda to be an awkward mess. Besides, was that the kind of woman her charge looked up to? And like, networking was one of the reasons she'd orginally been convinced to take this babysitting gig, so she should get to it.

So Glynda put on her best smile and walked up to the man. And as Glynda approached, she noticed he had a face with a familiar cheek structure, and a familiar sheepish cuteness in general.

"H-Hello, there!" said the man, after only a little misstep. He held out his hand, and then realized it had some grease on it, so he wiped it on his apron. "You must be Glynda, the babysitter?"

"Oh, yes, haha." She shook hands. "And you must be Ruby's father?" Not that, like, Summer wasn't able to be considered 'cute', potentially, by certain kinds of people, but like, Ruby must have gotten her cuteness from somewhere, genetically, right?

And the man smiled back. "That's right! Call me Tai," he said. "Ruby's told me so much about you."

"Oh, so you're still involved in her life? That's awesome."

"As much as I can be," he said, "A lot of the time, she and Yang help me out, but even then, when I'm around, I try."

"Oh, you're friends with Yang as well?" Glynda said. That might have been some awkward phrasing, but, like, it was too late to change it now.

He blinked and looked into the distance. "I- I don't know how she feels about me, but I consider her a friend, yeah." He smiled.

"So, um." Glynda asked. She coughed. "You-," she pontificated, "You and Summer are, uh, Ruby's parents?"

"That's right."

Glynda made a smile with the left half of her face. "But, now, Raven's... in the picture?"

"Oh, yeah, she is," he said.

"Anndd..." Glynda pontificated and then coughed, "You're okay with that?"

Tai nodded. "Yeah, she's really cool! I- we, Summer and I- knew her in college. And yeah, she's been doing her own thing, but she wants to get her life together now, and I'm supportive of that."

Glynda blinked. And she blinked again. Was he really cool that his wife had dumped him for a woman- an old college friend, even? Didn't that last part just make it worse? "That's. Um. Well, it's definitely good, but like, I don't think I would have expected you to be so chill."

"Well, she does play the guitar," he said, "that's a big bonus to charisma, right?"

Glynda made a laugh.

Raven then barreled up to them, with a handful of banners in her arms, "Hey, looks like you two met each other! You getting along?"

Tai smiled. "I- I mean, I think so? What- what does Glynda think?"

"Oh," Glynda siad. She smiled. "Yeah, he seems really chill."

Glynda looked between Raven and Tai. They did genuinely seem to like each other. Huh.

"Anyway, I've got the banners- you wanna grab - this-" Raven pulled a corner of a green one out towards the teen, "end and pin that to the far side of the house?"

* * *

As they worked, Raven gave her a debriefing. Rebriefing? Glynda wasn't actually 100% sure on the meaning of either of the term 'debreifing', come to think of it.

"So," Raven said, "Ruby invited some of her friends-"

"Woah, woah," Glynda said, "I get that guests will be arriving soon, but like, we didn't get to catch up." Glynda refreshed her smile. "How are you, Raven?"

Raven blinked, then smiled. "Pretty good," she said.

Glynda made another smile. "And, you're getting settled in?"

"Yeah," Raven said. She nodded a few times. "It's pretty fun. Summer's letting me take the kids to school sometimes, and we get to hang out a lot. Watching TV, playing guitar for them, teaching the girls new names for butts, that sort of thing. I think Ruby and Yang think of me as more of a cool Aunt, though, but like, baby steps," she said. She gestured with a banner.

Glynda nodded. "And like, Taiyang's here, at... this party..."

"Yeah, he gets sent away on business trips a lot. That's what you get when you say 'yes' when your boss asks if you can travel up to six months a year, aha." Raven waved the air, "But he's a total sweetheart. He makes an effort. He Skypes a lot."

Glynda nodded. "And, you two really get along? Like, that just wasn't because I was there?

"I mean, yeah, we get along." Raven tilted her head to the side. "Why do you ask? Did someone say something?"

Glynda figured it would have been obvious. "I mean, nobody said anything, but I guess I sort of figured he might, like- and I don't mean any offense by this- " Glynda pontificated desperately, "sort of resent you?

Raven laughed, heartily, at that. "Oh, _that's_ your concern? Nah, it's cool, we're cool, and we get that a lot. No worries," Raven said.

Glynda nodded. Raven coughed.

"Aaaannn-y-way," Raven said, "Ruby invited a bunch of her friends from school, and a few of their parent's are going to stick around and gossip with us, adult-style."

"Gossip?" Glynda was actually hoping that people stopped doing that after high school.

Raven shrugged. "It's basically gossip, with a verneer of respectability." She waved the air. "Anyway, Pyrrha's getting dropped off, and Jaune's family is picking up Ren and Nora from the Maximum Security Catholic Orphanage before dropping the three of them here. I think they've got rides home, but someone here can probably take them back if not."

Glynda nodded. Pyrrha, Jaune, Ren, Nora. She could remember those names, and once they showed up it'd be simple enough to just attached faces to the names.

"But her best friends, after you and Summer and Yang, of course, are Blake Belladonna and Weiss Schnee. They should show up shortly, and it's their parents who are going stick around and socialize, for the duration of the festivities."

Glynda nodded. "I guess that's why there's 6 chairs out by the buffet, huh?"

"Oooo, that should be eight- I'm not as good at math as my daughter, ahaha," Raven looked only a little horrifying nervous, for a moment. "Anyway, Willow and Jacques Schnee jointly own a large banking and mining company, and are active in, aha, state politics." Raven pontificated. "And Blake's parents- Mr. Fang and Mrs. White- are both civil rights lawyers and adult converts to Islam, who focus on workplace discrimination lawsuits." Raven made a chuckle. "They knew each other before their daughter's met and they're super fun at parties. So I'm told."

Blake was a girl, got that. Come to think if it, she would have assumed 'Weiss' was a boy's name too, probably.

Wait- "So Blake's last name is different from either of her parent's?" Glynda asked.

Raven makes a smile, into the distance. "Well- I guess it's okay to say, because it's kind of obvious, and there's nothing wrong with it, so -all their kids are adopted, so everyone in their family has a different last name." Raven rubbed the back of her head, "Though maybe don't bring it up to anyone. Actually, it's probably best if you avoid the topic of adoption. Or parenting."

"Huh. But, anyway," Glynda said, "Does that mean the Schnee's and the- um, Blake's parents will get into, um, one or more arguments?"

"Almost inevitably," Raven said, "That is, unless we take steps to avert it. It's like disaster prep, only with parents."

"I- um." Glynda thought back to her experiences with opinionated adults. "Is that even possible?"

Raven smirked. "Oh, I've dealt with those sorts of people before- If Blake's parents get starting on something, just ask them about their kids. Blake regularly comes in second to Ruby during the summer reading wars and they've got a son who just won an award at the Young Artist's Neo-dadaist Meta-texuralism Competition, in the Contemporary Gendered Assumptions of Guilt category."

Huh. Glynda didn't really know too much about his life, but she was pretty sure Adam had entered that competition too.

"And if the Schnee's ever start get worked up about something, just offer them," Raven leaned off to the side and plucked a lidded silver platter off a nearby table, "Cheese."

Raven pulled the lid off the platter, and there was indeed an assortment of different cheeses on there. They looked fancy.

"And that works?" Glynda said.

"Like a charm."

Glynda wasn't too familiar with types of cheese, so Raven gave her a crash course in the philosophy of cheese.

* * *

And eventually, the whole reason Glynda had attended this party made her presence.

Ruby stepped out of the house, into the garden. She was wearing a nice knee-length white dress with a large red rose embroidered at the front left side. Her hair was poofier than normal, which may have been do to some styling or maybe the hairband she wore, which had a big rose that sat above the girl's right ear.

Raven patted her on the shoulder. "I gotta go hide my van in the garage, so why don't you say hi to little Ruby, huh?"

Glynda smiled. That was her plan as soon as Ruby stepped out.

So, now that she had been formally dismissed by the adult, Glynda ran up to her charge. Only, today, she wasn't her charge; just her friend. It was kind of weird that one of Glynda's favorite friends was an eight and a half year old, but it was like, she was interesting and fun to be around, and surprisingly mature, like, objectively, in some things, and that made it comfortable to be around her.

"Ruby!" Glynda said, jumping right up to the child. "Wow, you look adorable!" Glynda said. she smiled.

Ruby smiled and looked to the ground, before making eye contact. "I thank you; the hairband is my mommy's," Ruby gently patted the rose at the side of her head. "I must say, you look lovely as well, Ms. Goodwitch." Ruby said, with a curtsy and a slight voice affect (or possibly an accent that Glynda couldn't quite place.).

Glynda stifled a chuckle at Ruby's formality. Well, the sitter knew her charge enjoyed elaborate make-believe sequences, so it was entirely in keeping with what she knew of her. And one time for a school project, Glynda read the first five pages of 'Pride and Prejudice' and skimmed a review of the movie, so she knew enough to go along.

Glynda coughed, and straightened her postured she put a hand to her sternum. "My gratitude for the compliment, Ms. Rose. I understand that this soiree is your doing?"

Ruby smiled. "It is to honor the conclusion of our local library's Summer Reading Competition, as well as my reciepience of the competition's First Place Ribbon."

"Wow! How many books did it take to do that?" Glynda said.

"Two hundred and sixteen."

Glynda nodded slightly, her lips pressed together. She was legitimately impressed.

"Anyway," Ruby said, "You've arrived really early..."

"Hahaha." Again, Glynda wasn't too sure what the protocol for parties was. "Well, early bird gets the worm, you know."

Ruby grinned, mischievously. She fluttered her eyelids, facetiously. "Oh, am I the worm in this analogy?"

Glynda blinked. Shoot, technically, that was sort of what Glynda had said, right?

"I- I didn't mean- I don't think you're a worm, Ruby-"

Ruby giggled. She waved the air. "In truth, I am happy that you're here so early, because it gives us some time to talk, before we get lost in the crowd."

Glynda sighed, having been forgiven for that faux pas. "Yeah?"

"It would be gauche of me to speak of such plans so far ahead of time, but- you may have heard that Raven will be leading a little dance as part of the festivities."

Glynda then noticed that Ruby was gesturing to an acoustic guitar, sitting in a stand, in one corner of the yard. "Huh. I didn't know that, but it sounds cool. I mean, it sounds quite agreeable I must say pip pip."

"Well," Ruby said. She held her left hand out all daintyish. "Would you do me the honor of saving me the first dance?"

Glynda almost completely successfully stifled her giggle. "Of course, madam. I await with bated breath and, uh, something- yes." In her defense, it had been a lot of months since she'd faked that book report.

Ruby's entire face brightened at that, before she caught herself. Ruby coughed and resumed with her small talk, regaling Glynda of the plot, themes, and meta-narrative impact of the TV show she was most interested in most recently. (It was about robots.)

* * *

And then Yang stepped out, at some point. She wasn't wearing a dress or any sort of formal attire even, and her hand was in a pocket of her jacket. Her hair was done up in elaborate braids, though, as if it was the one concession to the formal nature of the dance. They reduced the volume of her hair by quite a bit, and Glynda found herself a little in awe at the effort that went in to taming Yang's savage cascade of blonde hair.

Glynda excused herself form Ruby's company and ran up to her other charge.

"Hey, you!" Glynda said. She marched up towards the girl.

Yang smirked as Glynda approached. "Hey me?"

Glynda made a face. "You little cheat; the infinite sum all real and complex numbers from negative infinity to positive infinity, squared, is not zero. You tricked me."

Yang cackled. "You finally figured that out? It's been weeks."

Glynda puffed out a cheek. "I just needed to double check some of the math."

"And it took that long to do that?"

Glynda puffed out her cheek more. She looked to the side. "Yes."

"But the point was, you didn't know enough to refute a negative proof of your position."

"But your math was wrong!" Glynda frowned. "If you were just going to lie, why even base your insults in math at all?"

Yang thought about that for a while. "Well, how about, as a reward for discovering your folly, I tell you a little mathematical secret," Yang said.

Glynda was, actually, struggling just a bit in math, so she figured she could take any advantage she could. She leaned down and nodded to the elementary schooler.

"So in a group of 23 people, there's a fifty percent chance that two of them share a birthday." Yang said.

Glynda blinked. "That doesn't seem right..."

"And there's probably going to be 20 individual's here, so that means there's a 41% chance that two people here will share a birthday."

"But you know everyone's birthday. Like, down to the hour. So you know if two given people here _actually_ share a birthday."

"But probability doesn't work like that. If you know, you collapse the probability curve into either a truth or a falsehood once a measurement is made, but in the general case, there is a 41% chance two people here share a birthday."

Yang smirked "So what do you think about that?"

And while Glynda was thinking hard about that, Yang made her way to where Ruby was setting up outdoor toys.

* * *

And eventually, a creak at the garden gate signaled that the first guests arrived. Well you know, besides Glynda. They appeared to be the- uh, well, Blake and her parents, not that, you know, Glynda would make any assumptions, but, like, they sort of looked like... civil rights lawyers...

And a young girl with dark skin and a headscarf who appeared to be Yang's age, looking around as she walked.

"Hey, Blake!" Ruby exclaimed. She waved her hands. Yang raised her hand up, lazily, nonchalantly.

Blake smiled, and after getting some nods from her parent's, ran over to the other children.

The parents approached the food tables and the eight lawn chairs overlooking the rest of the yard, where Glynda currently milled around.

Glynda stood up and held out her hand. "Hello, Mr. Fang, Mrs. White."

Blake's mother shook Glynda's hand first. "Please, call me Caroline," she said. She smiled.

"And I'm Shuang," Said Blake's father.

And they didn't follow up with anything. Glynda even forgot to introduce herself.

"So. Um." Glynda put her hands behind her back and smiled, for two seconds, before it became awkward enough that Glynda started getting self-conscious.

And Raven swooped in to cover for Glynda.

"Hee~ey, Mr. and Mrs. Blake's Parents- Yang's told me so much about your daughter," Raven said, less exuberantly than she had greeted Glynda, but probably more proficiently. More- professionally? Was that the right word?

Anyway, the parents looked a little confused as the other adult talked to them.

Raven gestured towards the table with the food and drinks and paper eating utensils. "So we've got a punch bowl- fruit punch, from concentrate-, a vegetable platter, some other snacks and Tai's cooking some halal burgers along with the hot dogs."

"Oh, yes, we appreciate it," said Shuang. He glanced at his wife, and they made quizzical, nervous smiles, at each other and at Raven. "Tai's here?"

"Heeeee's-" Raven looked around. Glynda did as well. Tai didn't seem to be in the yard. "In the bathroom I guess?"

"We're so glad you could come!" Raven continued. She started getting into typical adult platitudes, and the visiting parents seemed to stick to the script, and Glynda jsut stood to the side, smiling.

And Glynda was rescued from making awkward conversation with real adults by of of the friends who was in attendance.

"Glynda, Glynda!" Ruby said. She tugged on the teenager's hand, "You have to meet Blake! She's soooo cool!'

Glynda breathed a sigh of relief. She let Ruby drag her away.

"This is Blake. She's cool." Ruby said. She nodded. Blake nodded.

"Hey there," Glynda said. She held out her hand.

Blake took the hand. From up close, she looked like one of those kids who tried to never smile because they saw some stoic brooding antihero on a TV show once and decided to emulate that character archtype.

"Blake gave me a run for my money at the book contest in which we are celebrating."

"That's nice," Glynda said, for lack of anything better to say.

"And she does the best Princess Accent! It's good, since that's the reason we let her play the princess in our battles."

Blake frowned. "I thought you said it was because I was majestic and regal and, of all of us, the most befitting a royal title."

Ruby chuckled and waved the air. "See, she didn't at first, but we made her read the right books so she could learn!"

Blake put her fists on her hips. " _You_ exclusively read science fiction. _Dumb_ science fiction. How are you supposed to know the nuance and poise of what a princess ought sound like?"

Ruby chuckled again. "But I also read more than you." She continued chuckling

Blake didn't laugh, though. She folded her arms and turned to the side. "Well, Weiss should be here exactly on time," Blake began. She pulled out her phone, "And it's exactly 4:30, so she should be here."

And, as if on cue, a creak at the garden gate signaled the arrival of new guests- A family of three, all of which had platinum blond hair and matching white formal attire with cyan accents.

The daughter ran up to Ruby and Blake.

"Hey Weiss!" Ruby called.

From this distance Glynda could see that Weiss had a thing vertical scar across her left eye. And, you know, a bunch of other physical features about her- Glynda wasn't hung up on the scar or anything-

Weiss smiled. "Hey Ruby!" then her voice dropped to a monotone. "Blake."

Blake crossed her arms and looked in the opposite direction of Weiss. "Well, I guess you're here," Blake said.

Weiss smiled, briefly, before she crossed her arms and looked in the opposite direction of Blake. "Well, maybe I wouldn't have come if I'd known you'd be here."

Blake crinkled her nose. "At least you managed to bath sometime in the last week. I can't smell you from two meters away anymore."

"Bla~ake~" Weiss whined. Then both she and Blake giggled.

Ruby covered a giggle with her fingertips. "Heehee- so anyway, this is Glynda! She's super cool and smart and strong."

Glynda rubbed the back of her head as Ruby painted, with the aide of elaborate hand gestures, a flattering but relatively inaccurate picture of her for her friends. It was a little awkward, and Glynda wondered if maybe she would have been better sticking with the adults.

* * *

And then four more kids showed up, at the same time. Glynda got as far as realizing Ren was a boy before they started getting really into re-enacting some sort of fantasy version of a popular children's cartoon or something.

It was probably all very cool and well though-out and enjoyable, objectively, but like, it was also an inside joke to which she was the outsider, and that... wasn't so enjoyable.

Glynda glanced up the hill over at Raven, who seemed to also be having a little trouble with the adults. They made eye contact, and Raven did some hand gestures that meant 'did you want to trade?'

So Glynda made to sneak away.

Ruby immediately reached out to her. "Wait, Glynda- don't go! We were just about to have fun..."

Glynda smiled and waved the air. "You kids go ahead and get started without me. I'm actually a little thirsty."

Ruby frowned. "Well, okay..."

Glynda walked up the hill, trading roles with Raven. Raven held her hand out as she passed. Glynda realized she was aiming for some sort of passing high-five right after it was too late to do so. Glynda coughed.

* * *

And once she had gotten a cup of punch and a small tuna sandwich, Glynda sat down among the adults. And then she started agonizing on how to entertain adults- like, she had felt a little out of place amount a tight-nit group of children but she didn't even know these adults, so her escape plan seemed to have backfired.

But, luckily, one of them asked Glynda something immediately after she sat down.

"So, Glynda was it?" Mrs. Schnee said, "I must say, you're a little removed from the Rose children's age group.

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side. "Yeah..."

"I didn't mean that in a negative manner. We've all had surprisingly informative conversations with little Ruby and Yang about agriculture and math and the broader cultural impact of various cartoon shows."

There was a chorus of nods.

Glynda stifled another feeling of annoyance. That was another thing she had thought was unique to her. But, you know, in retrospect, it made sense that a lot of people thought Ruby was smart. Because she was smart and people were smart enough to see that.

"So Glynda," Said Mrs. Wh- Caroline, "We've all been wondering, and who's, ah. Um. Who's that nice young woman with the tattoos?"

"Oh, you mean Raven?" Glynda asked.

"Ah, Raven," said the woman. She looked to the other adults, and they all shared quizzical looks.

Caroline turned back to Glynda. "So. What's. Um. What's Raven doing here?"

"Oh, she's Summer's wife." Glynda said.

And the world broke.

...

...

...

...

Mr. Schnee spat out his punch and started coughing. Mrs. Schnee wasn't actively eating or drinking anything, but she managed to start coughing too.

That was the same case with Shuang and Caroline, who at various points tried to help each other only to start coughing again and stumble out of their chairs, onto the lawn.

Glynda sat there, opening and closing her mouth awkwardly, lifting her hands up to help and putting them back down because she thought it'd be weird, wondering if she should do something. Like, maybe get Raven's attention...

But she looked like she was preoccupied with the kids, and Ruby and co looked like they were having so much fun.

So Glynda just, waited out the cacophony of low-key dying as the adults learned to breath again.

And then, a while later, after one of the recovered long enough "Summer... Remarried?"

"I-" Well, it just occurred to Glynda that maybe Raven and Summer weren't officially married, since Raven had just moved back in a month ago- but like, Summer was raising Yang, and Yang was Raven's daughter, so they must have been together at some point, for Summer to have Yang in her household. Glynda was pretty sure 'remarried' was the right term for that.

But, then again, marriage was, like, an event, that may or may not happen for various reasons...

"I guess I'm not sure," Glynda said. "Maybe they're just girlfriends?"

The adults blinked, at her, and at each other, and in the distance at some sort of giant existential question in their very souls.

"I um. Wasn't aware Summer swung that way."

"So what happened to Tai?"

"Hi," said Tai, from one of the outlying chairs.

And everyone else flinched. "HOLY- Tai, were you there the whole time?"

"I. Yeah." he said. He shrugged and smiled and glanced at the ground. "It's okay, though. Don't mind me."

The other four adults glanced around at each other and cleared their throats and finished regaining their composure.

"Oh don't be so hard on yourself, man. We appreciate your company, Tai."

Tai smiled at the ground and scratched at his hair, twice. "Oh! Thank you."

"Anyway," one of the Schnee's said. They both frowned. "Well, Summer's quite a character, but I can't say I approve of this whole second marriage thing."

"Ah-" Tai almost managed to say.

"Oh?" shot one of Blake's parents, "You didn't seem to mind that when you liked on Facebook that the country's treasurer got married for a third time-'

The other one spiked the verbal jab. "Or maybe it was just because that was a heterosexual marriage-"

Mr. Schnee's hand jumped to his chest. "Ex-cuse me- I do _not_ appreciate the insinuation that I am some sort of bigot-"

Glynda scrambled over to the covered silver platter on the buffet table. "THAT REMINDS ME- Would any of you like some," she held it out and pulled the lid off. "Cheese?"

Mr. Schnee blinked at her. "Did you just offer me," he said, "Cheese?"

Glynda blinked. "Um. Yes?" she said, meekly.

Mr. Schnee blinked twice. Then he smiled. "I'd love some," he said, "cheese."

"And, how about you, Mrs. White?"

"Cheese sounds lovely," she said.

"And- I heard you two had a kid so this Young Artist's Neodymium Metatron Competition in the Contemptuous Gender Assumptions category?"

They both laughed. "Oh, definitely. What you said."

"He got first place this year, though we'd be proud of him regardless," they glanced over at the Schnees. "Unlike some other parent's our love isn't conditional upon achievement-"

Before one of the Schnees got a word in Glynda leaned closer and brought her finger up- "-CAN~ you elaborate about the contest and your son's entry in it?" Glynda said.

"At length," Shuang said, "See, in earlier years, that contest was the pet project of one of the directors, was entirely subjective, and thus had no prize, but eventually they hired someone who'd majored in Gender studies to lead it and it became much more technically demanding..." Glynda nodded along.

And after awhile, the conversation somehow ended up at foreign arthouse horror films, which the four adults seemed to have firm but peaceful opinions about, and Glynda declared the crisis averted.

* * *

Raven walked up the hill at some point. Well, half-walked, half skipped, actually.

"Hey peeps!" Raven said. She waved Before she could continue, one of the adults asked her a question.

"So, ah, Raven, right?" said Mrs. Schnee.

"Oh! Uh, yeah, that's my name." Raven said, and then a little more quietly and nervously, "Don't wear it out."

That got some chuckles, which seemed to satisfy Raven.

"We, um," continued Mrs. Schnee, "Were all wondering..."

"Yeah?" Raven blinked. She smiled.

There was a chorus of glances, between the four adult guests.

"What's the significance of your tattoos?"

"OH!" Raven smiled She presented her left arm, "So this one I got when I came of age. It was sort of a tradition in my social circle to get, like, sick tattoos to commemorate big events in our lives, " And Raven enumerated some big events in her life.

"And some of these are just pop culture references I thought were funny at the time," Raven pointed to some made up words, symbols, and what turned out to be artist's interpretations of Japanese mythological creatures.

"And I have family back up in Wales, so this one's my old family's warrior crest," Raven pointed to a particularity fancy tattoo, a kind of snaking interweave.

"This one's a snake, because snakes are cool."

Raven pointed to a stylized rose and a stylized flame. "And I have a couple to represent the kids- OH!" she turned to the teenager, "I totes forgot why I came up here; Glynda, Ru- the kids wanted to know if you'd like to play with them during their next game," she said. She smiled.

Glynda stood up. "Oh! Of course."

And she walked down the hill, to the children, only slightly disappointed that she didn't get to hear where the rest of Raven's tattoos came from.

* * *

Except as soon as Glynda got through the regular greeting with the eight children, there was another creek at the gate, signifying one or more new arrivals.

And Qrow and James came in, with Penny in between them, holding a crutch but not using it. She walked between the two adults, slowly but steadily.

And then there was barking. Glynda jumped up when she heard that.

A small-ish dog- with black and white fur, ran into the yard, around the three newcomers. It barked, unceasingly, as it ran.

"Zwei!" Ruby called out. And her gang of children said words like 'a puppy' or 'ooo a doggy' and some such.

'Zwei' ran around towards Ruby, barreling down the hill. The dog was barreling down the hill, Glynda meant- Ruby was running in the opposite direction.

Ruby ran up and hugged the dog's head, before and breaking away and stroking the dog's head and muttering nonsense at the dog.

And the rest of the children did too, taking turns to pet the dog and hold the dog and chase the dog and be chased by the dog.

"Glynda," Ruby said, "Are you afraid of dogs?"

"W-what-" Glynda then coughed, "What makes you think that, Ruby?"

Ruby glanced down-

Glynda followed her gaze and saw that she had, at some point, jumped up onto a large rock in the middle of the yard.

"Oh! Well. You know. I just. Um. Yes." she said. She coughed and adjusted her glasses. "I'll just get down now, shall I?"

Glynda tried to bend her legs to get ready to step of the rock-

But then Zwei looked at her, and Glynda immediately reversed any progress she made.

"You know, I like being tall, so I'll stay up here," Glynda said. She smusched her mouth to the side. "Aaaannndd, like, dogs are made of wolves. Like, genetically."

Ruby giggled. "Hee hee! In that case, don't worry, little girl, I'll save you!"

She picked up the tiny animal wrought from wolves and carried it towards the adults-

But all the kids wanted to see the dog too, so they followed Ruby up the hill.

And that meant Glynda was alone at the bottom of the hill, standing on a rock, and that was just awkward, so she climbed down and edged her way into the outermost ring of the group of people.

Ruby had procured a leash and had attached the canine to one of the fixtures in the garden.

"Don't worry," Ruby said, "Blake's afraid of dogs too. It's not weird."

Glynda puffed out her cheek. Her cheeks felt hot. "I- I'm not afraid of dogs. D-don't you know, I'm fearless."

Ruby giggled.

* * *

"Qrow!" Raven yelled, then, suddenly. Apparently, she had been away and had just gotten back.

And she ran up to the group and jumped, landing right in front of Qrow. She put her brother in a headlock and gave him a noogie. "Haha, you're fashionably late today."

"Raven~" Qrow whined, "We are in public~"

Raven froze, and glanced around, at like 15 other people. "Ahahahaha," She said. She released Qrow and coughed.

"So how've you been?" Raven asked, as formally as she could manage.

"Pretty good," Qrow said. "You?"

"Good. So, you and James," She gestured to the other adult man standing around awkwardly, "Arrived together?"

Qrow rubbed the back of his head and glanced at the other man. "Well, we were hanging out a bit before hand, and we were both invited..."

Qrow glanced at his- boyfriend? Glynda actually wasn't sure she had heard anything definitive about them, so scratch that assumption. Raven was smirking wildly, though, but maybe she had heard a little more than Glynda had.

"To get technical about it," James interjected, "We decided to hang out beforehand because we realized we were both invited. By the way, I give you my thanks for inviting me and Penny." He said the last part with a short bow, to Raven.

"Of course! You're one of Yang's friend's father," Raven said. She looked up and tapped her chin. "Yeah, I think that's grammatically correct."

Raven gestured to Qrow. "This weirdo, on the other hand, I have no idea how he managed to get an invitation."

Qrow made a face, and then bust into laughter, alongside his sister.

Yang had 'nonchalantly' walked up to the group by this point. "Hey Penny!" she said.

"Oh!. Hey Yang." Penny said. She smiled.

"Can I give you a hand?" Yang said, holding hers out. "I've still got one left."

Everyone else opened and closed thier mouths awkwardly but Penny chuckled. She put her crutch into her other hand and took Yang's and they took three steps down the hill before Penny stopped.

"Actually, I think I'll sit up here for a bit?" Penny asked.

"Okay, yeah, that's fun," Yang said. She escorted Penny to one of the free chairs. "Did you want a snack? We've got sandwitches."

Penny smiled. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Yang ran up and started putting snacks on a paper place. "And hey, do you want to know something cool about birthdays?"

And Yang took Penny her order and they made their way to a shady section near the house. Over the next half hour Glynda would see them playing with Zwei at least once.

Qrow and James hung out in their own area of the yard. Glynda thought she saw flirting.

Glynda definitely saw Blake and Weiss's parents make awkward glances at each other, and at Qrow and James, and they looked like they wanted to ask Glynda about it.

But luckily, Glynda was rescued form another awkward situation by Ruby, again. Maybe Glynda should just give up on trying to hang out with adults?

"Glynda, Glynda!" Ruby called. When she showed up. she coughed. "Ms. Goodwitch. I and the other children will be beginning a little game of 'Total Anhilliation'. Would you care to join us? We would be charmed by your company."

Glynda hid her sigh of relief. She left, with Ruby.

* * *

Glynda was pushed in front of a group of rabid children. 'Rabid' as in, excited, loud, and bouncing, occasionally.

"This is General Glynda!" Ruby announced, to the other children. "And she's on _my_ team."

"Oh. Um," Glynda said.

"Well fine!" Weiss said. She put her hands on her hips. "Then we're all against you two!"

Ruby folded her arms and closed her eyes and then cracked her left eye open, menacingly. "Bring it, you mangy sea dog!"

"Um-" Glynda said.

Ruby quickly pointed out who was Pyrrha, Jaune, Nora, and Ren, and before Glynda could, they started thier pretend games.

* * *

 _"Ah ha ha." Sankt-Kaiser Rose laughed, hands on her hips and battle ballgown billowing in the wind. Pitiful fools, dancing on the precipice of folly. We shall drive you under our heels and dance to the lamentations of your parents~!"_

 _"Oh. Um." The General said. She gestured theatrically. "Your folly precipitates your downfall, traitorous curs!"_

 _"We've suffered under the tyranny of your tyrannical tyranny for TOO LONG, Kaiser!" yelled Knight-Commander Jaune._

 _"This is revolution!" yelled Warrior King Pyrrha, "THIS. IS. FREEDOM."_

 _Sankt-Kaiser Rose struck first, using her superior speed to break past the enemy lines to speak into the warrior's face, face to, um, face._

 _No," intoned the kaiser, **"this** is your **doom~"**_

* * *

And Glynda managed to get through the first foray into the princess's territory without suffering major losses. It wasn't that hard, and Ruby seemed to think she was doing a good job at it.

But Glynda's heart didn't seem to be in it, quite so much. Like sure, she could say some cheesy lines she'd half-remembered from war movies and she could run fast enough to convincingly almost but not quite catch with the elementary-age kids and she did eventually say her acquired catchphrase to -Jaune?- when it was appropriate, but like, this actually felt embarrassing, and it never felt that way with just Ruby, or with both the Rose daughters.

And, you know, Glynda actually felt a little upset that Ruby played her make-pretend games with other people. Like, she probably should have figured that, and it made a lot of sense in retrospect, but, like, Glynda couldn't help but feel a little... less important? Like, she had thought she was the only one that did that, with her...

"I um. I think I'm a little tuckered out," Glynda said, out of character.

The other kids paused. Ruby's face devolved into "But- Glynda! Without you to hold the left flank, I'll die!"

"Don't worry," Glynda said, "I'll attend your funeral."

"I mean it! They'll eat me alive~" Ruby whined.

Glynda stifled a chuckle. "Well, maybe if they find out how high in cholesterol you were from all those cookies, they'd be less inclined to want to eat you."

The other kids backed off.

"My mom gets mad at me if I eat too much cholesterol," Jaune said, "it sounds scary."

"Mother Salem says that we should strive to eat only plain bread, raw vegetables and our own pride," said Ren.

Pyrrha tapped her chin. "The Spartan way is to only eat what we hunt ourselves..."

Ruby caught the implication of Pyrrha's words before Glynda did, because she started running. The rest of the kids joined Pyrrha in the hunt.

* * *

Glynda ducked out- well, away from the party, for just a second. She just need a little bit of a breather, from all the socializing and the- well, 'socializing' pretty much summed it up. The myriad amount of different but inter-related anxieties and uncomfortable feelings of not belonging that arose as a a direct result of her socializing today.

She had noticed it when she first got it, but just to the side of the metal gate that led into the back yard was an assortment of hedges, and extrapolating the shape of the yard meant that there was a small area off from the rest of the yard, hidden from the world by two and a half meter hedges.

And true enough, Glynda found a bench, amid a little cobblestone walkway and a few marble sculptures.

But Glynda also found Raven there, on the bench, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. Glynda froze.

Raven opened her eyes and looked at the teenager, "Oh!" she said. She stood up. "What- what's up?"

Glynda tried to come up with a believable excuse for why she was trying to duck out of the party, but she came up blank.

Raven then sat back down and patted the bench next to her. "Do you just need a moment?"

Glynda sighed in relief. "Y-yeah," she said. She took the seat.

But you know, they were alone, and Raven seemed approachable.

"It's sort of like," Glynda began. She "I'm definitely way too old to be playing with the kids, but like, I don't fit in with the adults. When do I start feeling comfortable around other people?"

Raven laughed. "Oh, honey, I've felt that way for fifteen years, now."

"Oh. Wow." Glynda said. That definitely wasn't reassuring. Like at all. Like at all at all.

"But you learn to fake it. And there'll be times when you realize that you're not faking it."

"And then you eventually become one of those adults," Glynda gestured to the general direction of the buffet tables and adjacent lawn chairs.

Raven laughed. "Well, to quote a children's book, 'Growing up's not the problem, forgetting is'. It's like, you get older and get more responsibilities and junk, but that doesn't mean you stop having fun or using your imagination or sometimes be a little too excitable and loud-"

Raven smiled nervously and her head sunk into her shoulders, "And like, you gotta find a balance, and I know I've kind of leaned more on the 'having fun' and less on the 'responsibilities and junk' these last few- well, you know. "

"I mean," Glynda said, "I guess I've sort of been heading towards responsibilities my whole life. Like, the only reason I signed up to be a babysitter in the first place was because I wanted something to put on my resume."

Raven mostly managed to hide her laugh at that.

Glynda blushed slightly. "My internship had just imploded and my best friend made it make sense at the time."

Glynda exhaled. "But anyway, like, I never did all these elaborate make believe games when I was younger. I'm not as good at them as Ruby is, but," Glynda gritted her teeth and smiled with the left half of her face. She rubbed the back of her head. "I sort of wish I was, you know? But like, does that mean I don't actually want to- to grow up? I worry about that. "

Raven "I feel ya. I really do. And if it's any consolation, adults wish they did elaborate make-believe stuff all the time."

"Really? All of them?"

"Well, enough of them to fill out multiple hotel ballrooms on an annual basis in every major metropolitan center in the country."

Glynda blinked.

Raven waved the air. "The point is, you shouldn't feel bad about liking quote-unquote childish things."

Glynda smiled with the left half of her mouth again. "I- guess that was one of my concerns. Thanks," Glynda smiled with the rest of her mouth and made eye contact. "That helped a bit."

Raven held out her arms for a hug. "Would a hug help the rest of the way?"

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side and managed to maintain eye contact the whole time, this time.

"You'll be great for Ruby," Raven said.

"What?"

Raven laughed. "Nothing. Now c'mon, you want to take two with the kids? I'll keep the adults occupied."

Glynda agreed.

* * *

Raven walked up to the adults, her smile refreshed and her energy restored.

What Glynda had said to her really spoke to her; belonging was in the mind of the beholder. And this was where Raven belonged. Because she was the beholder, complete with inherent gays abilities as a free action.

Because she could do this; throw the perfect party, entertain ten kids and eight adults and have fun doing so.

Because, well. That should be reward enough in itself, right? Bonding experiences?

But like, if you wanted to get into it, this was, like, her audition to get back into good graces with Summer and Ruby and, maybe, Yang. The 'Maybe' was because she knew Yang liked her but, like, didn't really trust her to be responsible, but also that she was already pretty far into good graces with Yang so in her case it might have been like all those sitcom plots where miscommunication leads a character to invest a lot of resources into an elaborate display of affection that ultimately turned out to be unnecessary and predicated on an underlying lack of communication. So like all sitcom plots, haha.

Qrow and James were taking a walk around the premises- and good for them, because it was about time Qrow had found somebody. Like, it was cool he was involved with his nieces (Ruby a lot more than Yang, though Raven didn't let that bother her), Tai had snuck away to man the grill again- bless his heart, but he was non-confrontational to a fault- and Yang had taken Penny up to her room to introduce her friend to all her bears. And they probably didn't need checking up on; Yang was really responsible, because she had to be since Raven abandoned her like a goddamned asshole-.

So that just left Ruby and her little friends- which Glynda was taking care of- and the parents, which Raven had to entertain, for the day.

Jacques Schnee seemed to have drawn the short straw to try to talk to her this time. He coughed, as the other three adults looked at him expectantly.

"So Raven," said Mr. Schnee, for what was like the third time. "For real this time. We had a bit of a personal question, if you don't mind?"

Raven smiled. "Yes?"

"Ah. Um."

Honestly, if they actually got the nerve to just straight out ask if she and Summer were lesbians, Raven would totally explain the situation as best she could. It was really lucky they made that historical movie about that polyamorous triple that created Wonder Woman, because now Raven had an easy answer to the 'what is the exact nature and origin of your relationship with Summer and Taiyang?'. Like, it wasn't' a 100% fit, but at least it gave people a pretty solid frame of reference from which to jump off from.

The only snag was that, that would imply that Ruby and Yang were Wonder Woman, and Ruby was more into the Punisher and Yang more into Iron Man. Or if you were keeping it in the DC universe, Yang'd definitely be- Oracle, maybe? Raven was pretty sure there was a bear-themed superhero somewhere- and, you know, Ruby'd probably be Midnighter.

And that'd fit, again not like 100% but because Midnighter was gay, and was also a total melodramatic egomaniacal edgelord.

Like, yeah, there were people with he idea that someone couldn't actually have a sexuality before they hit puberty- and that probably wasn't completely inaccurate to some people, but in Raven's experience, most people had the inkling about who they seemed romantically attracted to- if not sexually- since they were maybe 8 or so, so Raven believed Ruby when she said she was into girls.

\- and of course, Raven would be totally down to give her biological daughter any amount of romantic advice and/or organize sitcom-plot-esque elaborate expenditures of resources for silly romantic notions (Which definitely beat burning all your actions to combine Prisoner's Honey), but like, she didn't want to mess Yang up for life, where doing elaborate thingys for Ruby seemed to be less high stakes, if that made sense?

Raven's worry was more that Ruby was latching onto her babysitter because she was mistaking 'being paid to watch me so my parents are legally not culpable of abandonment' for 'being interested in me as a person'. Like, that was exactly what happened with Bojack and Diane in season 1. And that would also apply if there wasn't a crush involved; thinking someone was your friend when really they were just paid to.

But it seemed Glynda actually did enjoy spending time with Ruby, so like, there was a good chance they could be friends, like Bojack and Diane in all subsequent seasons. And like, crushes- especially precocious ones- tended to dissipate after a period of time and once you got to know your crush, with a conversion factor between the two weighted more towards getting to know each other. Yang probably had an exact equation somewhere-

"What have you been reading lately? Since, nominally, this party is to celebrate the completion of a reading competition," Jacques said.

Raven jumped out of her head, metaphorically. She smiled. "Well, I did burn the two skill points to become literate, but I've recently been into a few independently developed interactive fiction experiences recently that have taken up a bunch of my free time."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, I've been trying to keep in touch with cutting edge narrative styles and all." Raven nodded and waved the air. "No big deal."

"So it's, ah," Caroline said "interactive fiction?

"Yeah."

"How does that work?"

Raven leaned forward, her elbows on her knees so she wouldn't tire her arms out as much with all her accompanying hand gestures. "Okay so you know the concept of The Death Of The Author?"

"Ah. Um."

"Basically, any sort of art- text, visual, music, etc.- is only half complete once the artist hits the 'submit' but- I mean, once the artist finishes it. It's up to the audience- individually, of course, because everyone's experiences are different and the lens an individual uses to view the world is unique- to finish the meaning- thematically, symbolically, viscerally- of a work."

Raven pontificated chaotically. "What a work means is a product of an individual's interpretation of it, which is why it's called 'Death of the Author', because authorial intent, eventually, is largely irrelevant. "

Willow nodded. "I see. It's like how the our modern culture has found a sense of pride and history in old war monuments, regardless of any less-than-savory intent motivating those who erected them in the first place."

Shaung pivoted on his butt to turn to Jacques. "I find it remarkable that you cannot seem to grasp that those monuments are a very real symbol of oppression for a sizable part of the popular-"

"-HAAaaaa~ve you sample our selection of Brie, yet?" Raven leaned over an pulled the silver serving platter of cheese in font of her. She pulled off the lid and rotated the platter on her palm.

Jacques blinked. "I don't think I have, actually."

"Oh, darling, you simply must," said Willow, "they didn't spare any expense.

Raven nodded. "Yes, this batch is exquisitely smokey and oakey with a rustic aftertaste," she said with a straight face.

Jacques smacked his mouth a couple times, "That's an interesting interpretation. I find it [words words words jargon jargon cheese]"

Raven smiled. "Yes!- and Caroline," Raven said, after doing her own butt-pivot, "Was this this last month the first time Adam's entered a Neo-dadaist art competition?"

"Well, he entered last year because he thought, 'why not', but this year he put serious effort into it."

Raven nodded. "Dadaism- and the modern revitalization of such, which is where the 'Neo' comes from- insert Matrix joke here- got its roots in a rejection of established theories art theories in favor of an individualism manifested through an absurdist counterculture against the aesthetics of capitalism and what was perceived as an upper-class bias in the fields of logic and science."

The Schnee's nodded at 'individualism' but then stopped at 'against the aesthetics of capitalism'.

"See," Raven continued," Even though everyone's experiences are unique, there are large swaths of similar interpretations of how common symbols make you feel, or what common narratives represent, usually osmosed into a cultural zeitgiest though repetition among academic and educational lines."

"I actually never realized that," said Shuang, "That's actually very interesting, that it was a counterculture."

Raven schliked the corner of her mouth. "As with all artistic movements, there's disagreements about who it actually fought for and what it actually upheld, but yeah."

Raven got into a little more of art history.

"Sorry for interrupting, but where did this tie into interactive fiction again?"

Raven blinked. She mentally backtracked through about nine different tangents to figure out the original point of divergence.

"The point was that," Raven said, a little slowly, to give her time to think, "In interactive fiction, the interpretation of the narrative is also empowered by giving direction of the story to the audience, which is actually the concept of 'Death of the Author' mechanized into the functionality of the work."

"Okay, but um," Shuang said, "I was more interested in how this was accomplished? How can you give an audience control over the direction of a story?"

Raven waved the air. "Oh. You know, it's sort of like those choose-your-own adventure books that you may have had when you were a kid."

"Ah," said Caroline.

* * *

And Raven manged to fill another half hour telling adults, obliquely, about her favorite Batman video game.

Then the creak of the gate made everyone pause and turn to the entrance.

A woman with a doctor's coat and deep bags under her eyes stepped into the garden, regarding the the assortment of people in her yard.

"WHAT THE HEEEEeeee-" Summer said. She looked at the mob of children, "-eck is going on here?"

Raven walked up, awkwardly, hands behind her back. She kept her smile the whole time. "It's. Um. The garden party Ruby wanted."

Summer blinked. Then she snapped, with her right hand. " _That's_ why I bought a pinata."

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

I know Blake's biological parent's have been shown since I started planning this (I have had a draft of this chapter for more than a year now, welp), but I'm keeping it this way because I'm too lazy to rewrite it. Here, Adam is Blake's adopted brother (Sp the abusive relationship he seemed to have with Blake will definitely not carry over to this AU. Personally I like Monochrome fics that focus on Blake and Weiss bonding over past experiences with abusive relationships- Weiss with her father and Blake with Adam- but this isn't a primarily Monochrome Au, and there are other fics out there that do that better than I could). Blake's family is Muslim because I think that encapsulates minority status well in the modern cultural zeitgeist of my admittedly non-universal experiences.

Like most high school honors students, Glynda stopped actually reading books for real a long time ago, which is why she's impressed with Ruby's dedication to reading.

In the 'Green Shakes at McDonald's' arc, I included some math that wasn't actually correct, so I'm retconing it here to be that Yang was just lying to win the argument.

I know 'Recipience' isn't a word, but Ruby's trying to be smart in front of her crush.


	10. The Perfect Party, So She'll Love Me 3

I guarentee no expertise on parties, crushes, religion, parties, alcohol, adulting, dancing, cake, or parties.

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

 _The rebellion was ruthlessly swift and swiftly ruthless. Of course, Sankt-Kaiser Rose's superior speed allowed her to evade capture for a while, but she was outnumbered six to one- literally one, as all her allies had abandoned her in her time of need.  
_

 _The rebellious curs dragged her off to the ceremonial kitchen, where she would be ceremoniously chopped up and devoured with, ironically, little to no ceremony._

 _"I expected this from you, Arch-Princess and Grand Admiral," Kaiser Rose said to Belladonna and the Schnee, "You have only ever truly been loyal to each other. But you, Pyrrha? Is your honor so malleable? Did your word mean nothing?"_

 _"I'm sorry, my Kaiser," said the spartan commander, "But my bloodlust has surpassed my loyalty, and my hunger has surpassed my human aversion to cannibalism."_

 _"You will find the joke is on you, traitorous poppinjay," said Sankt-Kaiser Rose, "for a lifetime of poor dietary decisions have rendered my flesh toxic to digestion and distasteful to the tongue. Muwahahaha!"_

 _"You may comfort yourself with any thoughts you wish in your last moments," Pyrrha intoned._

 _Sankt-kaiser Rose held her breath and closed her eyes, making peace with her life- and with her deeeaaaath._

 _"I Object!" yelled a familiar voice, "Or, er, I mean, stop right there!"_

 _And General Glynda charged in, scattering the rebels and slashing Ruby's bindings-_

"Wait," Ruby said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm, um," Glynda said, "I'm cutting the, uh, the ropes."

"Oh!" Ruby said, "Oh, no- I'm not tied up, I'm in a soup pot."

"Oh! Oh, okay, um-"

 _General Glynda charged in, scattering the rebels and kicking over the giant soup pot, spilling bits of gross vegetables as well as Sankt-Kaiser Rose to the ground._

 _The Kaiser rose to her feet, dramatically. She turned to the traitors- who started to cower in fear... and loathing._

 _"Run while you can, you mongrels," the Kaiser intoned._

 _And they did._

 _And then the hunt was on._

* * *

 _And the two unlikely allies chased the rebels down, throughout the Kaiser's old base. The rebels put up a good fight, but this was the Kaiser's home-field advantage- and the General's superior age imparted upon her great wisdom and also greater reach and running speed._

 _Until they cornered the six traitors in the Kaiser's personal saferoom._

 _"Haha!" cried Valkyrie-lord Valkyrie,"This is your personal saferoom. If we are safe anywhere, we are safe here."_

 _Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose only chuckled, evilly. General Glynda was taken aback._

 _"The joke is on you," said the Kaiser, "Because for personal reasons, I rigged my saferoom up with DEADLY POIIISSSONNN~" The kaiser waved her arms in the air, "RELEASE THE NEUROTOXIN!"_

 _"Um," Glynda said._

 _And the traitors clutched their throats and choked and begged for mercy-_

"I think neurotoxin targets the, um, the nerves," Glynda interjected, "so you wouldn't really be _choking-"_

 _And the traitors clutched their nerves and spasmed and begged for mercy-_

"Well, yeah, that's true," Ruby said, "But aerosolized nerve agents are usually delivered through the respiratory system, and their mode of killing is to prohibit control of the respiratory muscles to cause asphyxiation, so there is indeed choking involved," Ruby said.

 _And the traitors clutched their throats and spasmed as they lost control over their respiratory muscles, and they begged for mercy as best as they could, what with the loss of motor control and all._

 _And Sankt Kaiser waved her arms in the air and cackled, viciously cruel and cruelly vicious, as she watched her friends die. "Die, you traitors! Die like animals! WE'RE ALL ANIMALS~!"_

 _"Um," said the General, "Are- are we just going to let them die?"_

"They're not actually dead," Ruby said.

Nora raised her hand, from where she lay slumped over on the ground. "Yo~"

"No, I um," Glynda said, though a forced smile, "I meant, in the context of the game-"

However, Glynda never finished explaining her misgivings, because at this point, a woman with a doctor's coat and deep bags under her eyes stepped into the garden, regarding the the assortment of people in her yard.

"WHAT THE HEEEEeeee-" said a woman, from up the hill, "-eck is going on here?"

Ruby immediately dropped her pretend persona and turned to the top of the hill.

"It's. Um." said Raven, "The garden party Ruby wanted."

Summer snapped her fingers. "That's why I bought a piñata."

Ruby reached the top of the hill.

Ruby started running up the hill.

And Glynda decided that, since she'd met Summer multiple times and since Ruby was the person at this party she knew the best, it'd be better to follow Ruby up the hill to her mother, rather than stand around awkwardly nearby a group of strange children against whom she had just pretended to be complicit in violating the Geneva conventions. So Glynda followed Ruby up the hill. (Behind her, the children quietly jeered at Ruby's devotion to her mother, until Ruby turned around and glared, prompting the other kids to run away screaming.)

"Ruby!" Summer called out. She kneeled down and held her arms out, and Ruby ran up to hug her.

"Oh my sweet baby girl," Summer said, squeezing her daughter around the torso, "you look adorable! Mwah!" She smooched Ruby's forehead.

"Thanks, mommy, but-"

"Mwah mwah mwah! And is that my hairband? It looks so good on you!"

"T-thanks, mommy, but-"

"Why don't you keep it?"

"Um, Okay, yeah! -but um," Ruby closed her right eye and tilted her head as she bore the onslaught of her mother's affection, "Do- do you think we can maybe do this later?" Ruby managed to say.

Summer paused. She pulled out of the hug and looked Ruby up and down, and then she looked around at the eight adults, seven kids and one teenager standing around in the yard, looking at her.

"Oh, are you embarrassed in front of your little friends?" Summer said. She pulled Ruby in for another hug and smooched her daughter's forehead again, but without the sound effect. "Don't worry, they're just jealous because their mommys don't love them as much as I love you."

"Um-" Ruby emitted.

"Mwah!" Summer smooched Ruby's head, "And two of them are orphans, so they know it's true-"

"Um!-" Ruby emitted.

Tai stepped into Summer's view, just then. "Um- Summer," he said, "Can I take your medical coat?"

"Nah," Summer waved the air, before using that hand to hug Ruby again.

Tai made a smile and leaned to the side, "But, ah. It's got- a little bit of blood on it-"

"I CHOOSE TO WEAR THE TATTERED FLESH OF MY DEBTORS~" Summer said, suddenly. She waved her hands in the air. Ruby took that opportunity to step back, out of the hug.

"Debtors?" Glynda couldn't help but ask.

Summer waved the air haphazardly. "Well, what with the sate of the insurance markets nowadays, aha - ISN'T THAT RIGHT JACQUES?" She called out that last part to the array of lawn chairs.

Mr. Schnee made a grimace. "We- ah, we don't actually shape federal policy-" he gestured to himself and his wife.

Tai took the opportunity of Summer's distraction to gently ease the woman out of her doctor's coat. Summer didn't say anything or turn to look at him, but she held her arms out to make it easier.

"OH!- Raven," Summer said, "Be a dear and get the piñata set up, won't you?" Summer rummaged through the right pocket of her jeans and pulled out a key. She tossed it at Raven (with an arc that was a little higher than necessary, Glynda thought).

"Yes, right on it," Raven said. She bolted away.

"Do you want some food, mommy?" Ruby asked.

Summer smiled and rubbed her daughter's head. Ruby smiled back and glanced at the ground, real quick, and brushed some of her hair out of her eyes. "That would be lovely, dear," Summer said.

"Okay!" Ruby ran off to get some food from the serving table.

Summer made her way to the two men standing off to the side of the main huddle of adults.

"Hey Qrow, whaddaya know," Summer yelled out. She held her hand out as she approached.

Qrow held his hand out in response, and Summer slapped it, and then bumped the back of Qrow's hand with the back of hers, and then she shook hands the conventional way while also pulling Qrow in for one of those shoulder-bump side hugs.

Summer stepped out of the hug-thing, suddenly.

"And- Mr. Ironwood, is it?" Summer gestured to James, "I think Qrow's mentioned you a few times," She said. She held her hand out to him as well.

"I- yes. I hope it was nothing but good things, aha." He said. James held out his re- his biological hand and braced for whatever it was that happened to Qrow, but Summer just shook his hand in a professional way.

Summer winked and made a smile and said something that Glynda couldn't here from where she stood.

"Summer~!" Qrow whined.

James coughed.

* * *

By now, Tai had come back out, with a bloodless white jacket in his hands. He stepped next to Summer and said nothing as he held out the article of clothing.

"Thank you, dear," Summer said.

And- Summer smooched Tai, on the cheek.

Well, it could have been a platonic kiss, Glynda figured. Like, if Summer was on good enough terms to invite her ex to her daughter's superfluous garden party, she might have given him a platonic cheek smooch.

Summer pulled her jacket on, haphazardly, as she made her way to the lawn chairs. Zwei barked and ran over, since that was at the outer radius of where his leash would extend to. Summer petted the canine's head after she sat down.

Ruby ran up to her mother with a plastic cup of purple liquid and a paper plate of snacks.

Summer accept both and took a sip from the cup. She furrowed her brow. "Is this punch?"

"Um," Ruby said. She stiffened and leaned to the side, "Yeah- is that- is that not what you wanted?"

"No no, it's fine," Summer said. She smiled, warmly, at her daughter. Ruby smiled back, brushing some hair out of her eyes. "It would have to be punch, there, cause, the kids can get to it. It's fine. You're fine. TAI!"

"Yes?" Tai said, from where he had been standing nearby the whole time but nobody noticed.

"Be a dear and bring I and our guests some wine, won't you?" Summer said. Then she downed her cup and threw it towards the trash can. It managed to go in, and Simmer threw her arms up in victory. Ruby clapped.

"Yeah, I can do that-" Tai said. For the- fourth time, maybe?- He stepped out and into the house.

Summer stuffed a finger sandwich into her mouth. "So how is the party so far?" Summer enunciated, to Ruby.

"it's really fun!" Ruby said. "Raven led some games and then we played pretend and then Glynda and I killed all the other kids!"

Glynda choked on her own spit, just a little. To cover it up, she pretended she needed a drink, so she stepped over to the table and grabbed a cup, and a few sandwiches for good measure.

Summer smiled and rubbed Ruby's head again. "Aww, I'm glad you're having fun. Show them all who's boss."

More quickly than Glynda would have figured, Tai returned with a bottle and a few wineglasses in his elbows.

Summer waved him down, and Tai nodded and approached.

Ruby met Tai halfway and took all but one of the glasses to the table, and Tai poured out a glass for Summer.

Summer downed it in one gulp and held it out for more.

"Um," Tai said. He smiled, nervously.

"Its been a long day at work, dear," Summer stated.

"O-okay," Tai responded. He refilled Summer's glass.

Summer didn't down that one, but she took a small sip. Tai started taking and filling the other adult's wine orders.

* * *

Then Raven came around the house into the garden, hefting a giant piñata and some rope.

Glynda kept her face neutral, because, it turned out, it was a Queen Elsa piñata. She stuffed her second sandwich in her mouth.

"Raven!" Summer called out.

Raven's head shot up, and she glanced at Summer, and at the piñata in her hand, and the crowd of children that, in the absence of adult supervision, had resumed pretending to hunt each other down for food.

Summer gestured over, and Raven ran over, lugging the piñata as she did.

"What- um. What did you need?" Raven said.

"Lean down," Summer instructed.

Raven glanced to the side and made a smile, and she did so.

"A little lower," Summer said.

And Raven brought her head down, next to where the doctor sat, and Summer sat up and smooched Raven on the cheek. (In the exact same manner that she had smooched Tai, Glynda noted.)

Raven blinked as she stood back up. There was a slight blush on her cheeks. (Glynda closed her mouth, since it had fallen over at some point for some reason.)

Summer leaned back again and turned to look at the children down the hill, enacting their blasphemous cannibalistic rituals. "I forgot to do that when I came in, my bad," Summer stated.

"Oh! Um. Yeah. Thank you." Raven pointed at the tree, down the hill, where all the kids were working out the logistical details of their new, cannibalism-based economy. "Ima go set this up, then?"

Summer nodded. "Please do."

"Yay! Piñata! I'll help too!" Ruby said. She waved at Glynda. "Come down once you're finished with your food, m'kay?"

"M'krmmm," Glynda managed to enunciate, since in an astounding lack of foresight, she took three sandwiches, when she was really only hungry enough for two. She chewed her mouthful as quickly as she could.

* * *

And after Raven left earshot and Summer stuffed another finger sandwich into her mouth, the four visiting parents shared a look and leaned in.

"So, we were wondering," said Shuang, "What is the exact nature and origin of your relationship with, ah, Raven?"

Summer's face was inscrutable for a moment, as she swallowed her food and she glanced at her glass of wine and then down the hill where Raven was supervising the new cannibal tribe.

"She's my sexpet," Summer said.

And the world broke again.

.

.

.

Glynda was a little caught off guard, but not as much as the adults were. She hadn't been eating or drinking at that particular moment, though she did almost drop her empty cup and last sandwich.

Mr Schnee did a legitimate spittake, before devolving into a coughing fit. Mrs Schnee's eyes bugged out and she started pounding her chest and choking.

Shuang fell over, out of his lawnchair, while Caroline seemed to have been paralyzed by shock.

And as soon as one of the guests made a choking sound, Zwei started barking, continuously, adding to the general chaos of the scene.

Summer leaned back and crossed her legs and brought her wine glass to her lips, slurping audibly as she watched her friends die. There was a slight smirk on her face.

During all that, Glynda managed to only choke a little.

Because, like, she knew that Summer and Raven were like, romantically and, um, and sexually involved-

Well, she'd seen them adjourn to the master bedroom while making out, and like, she had seen the adult women in each other's shirts, pantless, so like, Glynda had kind of assumed-

-not that she spent a lot of time thinking about it or anything-

\- but she'd kind of assumed that Summer and Raven were, you know.

Like, ah-

-doing-

\- doing _adult_ things with each other.

So it wasn't really a _shock,_ per se. And, in retrospect, it was entirely in keeping with what Glynda knew of the situation.

"That was. Um." Glynda said, "A very descriptive term for. Uh. For your girlfriend-"

Raven ran up the hill then, since apparently a giant coughing fit was noticeable from down the hill.

"Um- what- what happened?" Raven asked

"I take it you never told them about yourself?" Summer said.

"Well, I told them about _my_ self."

"And the reason you're here in the first place wasn't an important part of your self?" Summer asked, pointedly.

"In my defense, they never got up the nerve to actually ask me, so." Raven made a smile, "I just answered honestly to every question thrown my way."

Summer took another sip from her glass and grinned. "That's hilarious."

"Aha. Glad you think so," Raven said. "So um. Should we help them?"

Summer took another long look at her guests as they slowly died in various ways, many of which involved respiratory dysfunction.

But, now, it looked like Shuang was actually choking. Summer sighed, theatrically, and she stuffed her last sandwich into the corner of her mouth as she stood up.

Without looking, Summer handed her glass to Raven, dropping it a second before she had her grip on it, but Raven managed to duck down and catch it, without spilling any of the contents.

And the doctor performed that one anti-choking move on the civil rights lawyer. Shuang spat out an olive. Zwei barked and ran over to where it landed.

Raven helped him to his feet and gave him a plastic cup of water.

"Ah- um, Glynda," Raven turned to the teenager, "Do you think you could take charge of the piñata-"

"Y-yeah," Glynda said. She ran down the hill, extremely relieved that she had an excuse to step away from that whole mess.

* * *

And she could see it from afar, but up close Glynda could really take it in. It wasn't necessarily a very show-accurate reproduction of Queen Elsa, but it was definitely supposed to be Queen Elsa, in the form of a piñata.

And Glynda had half-hoped that maybe Ruby had changed her mind about the Disney princess but that hope died once the children started chanting.

"Slay the queen! Slay the queen!" chanted the children in hideous unison, dark invocations to the uncaring, charnal wind. Ruby was the most enthusiastic chanter of all, and she was the one wielding the aluminum baseball bat that they were to use to, aha, slay the queen and gain access to the candy within.

"So, uh," Glynda said, to Ruby. "I guess, I should help with the piñata...?"

"Slay the queen! Slay the qu- yeah!" Ruby said, "You just have to pull on the string when other people swing to keep them from slaying the queen," Ruby state.

Glynda made a smile. "Ah- other people?"

Ruby leaned in and her eyes narrowed and her smirk turned more mischievous. "Heeheehee. I know you like me best, Glynda."

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side. "I. um. I can't really, like, help you, specifically, like that..."

"Of course," Ruby whispered. She tapped her nose.

"No, I mean,- I really can't, like, cheat for you-"

Ruby's smile never wavered. She stood up straight and stopped whispering. "You'll do fine, Glynda! I just know it."

Glynda smiled. Ruby's words were strangely comforting. "Um. Okay..."

* * *

And the kids separated into rock-paper-scissors brackets to decide who got to go first.

"Wait," Ruby said, after finalizing the pairs, "Where's Yang?"

"I saw her go upstairs with that orange-haired girl," said Jaune. He pointed at the house.

"I'll get her, real quick," Ruby said. She handed the bat to Glynda dropping it a second before she had her grip on it, but Glynda managed to duck down and catch it. "Stall the revolution, ok Glynda?"

Glynda caught the bat before it fell. "Ah-"

But Ruby shot off before the teenager could finish voicing her doubts.

* * *

"Ahhahahaha," Glynda finished.

And finally it had come to pass- something which Glynda had tried very hard to avoid since she got here- she was alone with 6 hyperactive children whom she had never met before.

So like, not even remotely alone, but 'alone' as in she was outnumbered, though she could probably round up all these kids into Ruby's secret room to poison them-

Glynda shook her head and checked her reality. No, if she was just honest and assertive with this crowd of children, it'd all work out fine-

"So you're Ruby's babysitter," said Pyrrha. She had a big smile on her face.

"I- yeah," Glynda responded.

"She must _really_ like you to invite her to her reading party," said Weiss. She also had a big smile on her face.

"I- guess?"

"So do you like her back?" said Blake.

"Yeah. She's really cool," Glynda said. She didn't add 'for an eight and a half year old', because qualifying her compliment would imply Glynda didn't actually think Ruby was cool.

"Ooooo~" jeered the kids.

"Ah-" Glynda said, bewildered.

"So, anyway," said Pyrrha. She waved the air. "Are you familiar with the concept of utilitarianism, by Jeremy Bentham?"

"Oh! uh," Glynda said. This was one of those tests that kids gave teenagers to try to prove that they were smart and teenagers were dumb.

But the joke was on Pyrrha, because Glynda actually knew that one, because Ozpin had a bunch of random hobbies. She stood up tall and recited. "That's a theory that means, that the course of action that benefits the most people, is the right one."

Pyrrha nodded. "Exactly! And in this case, the best course of action Is to eat you, since you're the biggest, and can feed the most people."

The other kids nodded in agreement.

"Ummm, " Glynda said. She was sure there was a fallacy there, but she wasn't sure exactly what it was.

And as the horde of cackling, menacing, hyperactive children closed ranks, Glynda realized she had one chance to try to talk them down.

"But, you shouldn't do that," Glynda said, before they all managed to get her.

"Oh? And why not?" said one of the kids.

"Because," Glynda said, and her voice only wavered slightly, "You're, due to play with me, once the others get back-"

And then, more confidently; "And you mustn't play with your food."

The children pondered that long enough for Ruby and Yang and Penny to appear at the top of the hill, and Ruby- who was well known as a Glynda sympathizer- assumed command of the horde again, and instructed them to spare the teenager.

* * *

Raven helped the last houseguest stop choking to death, as that was her duty as Perfect Host. (and by the way, she was _nailing_ this role- not that there had ever been any doubt.)

"Is everything okay?" Qrow asked, when he and James walked back into the backyard. (They both had a beer, from the indoor house fridge, and were keeping themselves occupied, so good for them.)

"Nah, Summer just, said something really funny," Raven explained.

So like, don't get her wrong, all the best parties resulted in sending someone to the hospital, but like, when the Hostess (Well, Summer counted as that, right? She owned the venue, even if, like, she didn't do any preparation or lead any of the activities) deliberately set it off, thaaaat, was sort of like, inviting all your loyal minions to a grand display of your power and then using it on them.

"Anyway, Shuang," Summer stated, "Have you seen the new biopic about the polyamorous triple that created Wonder Woman?"

Raven's heart fluttered- She was the one that had shown that to Summer. (That was a fundamental joy of geekdom; having someone you like take to something you geeked out over- that sharing your passion to the point where you propagated it, assimilating all into a exigent hive-mind of squealing fangirls.)

"I- no," Shuang said, and he grimaced just a little.

"Pity. It's pretty good, and I was going to tell you that that was basically what our-," she gestured to Raven and Taiyang and herself, "relationship is like. "

"Ah-"

"But in lieu of easy analogies, to fully answer your question," Summer said, "Raven is Yang's mother. She and Taiyang used to date, before they met me."

The other four adults nodded.

"I see the resemblance, between you and Yang," said Caroline.

Raven rubbed the back of her head and closed her eyes and smiled. "Ehee~"

Summer nodded. "Yes yes. To continue my story; the three of us dated for a while before Raven left to pursue her music career."

And there was Summer's special move; absolute guilt implosion. It took off your current health bar and reduced your resistance on the next one by up to 25%.

Like, obviously, Raven knew she was supposed to feel guilty, and she did, and she was trying to make up for it- because yeah, there were a lot of mistakes there, in her past-

"So you just forgave her for that?" Willow asked, but Raven assumed it wasn't out of malice.

"Well unlike some, it seems Summer's capable of forgiveness-"

Summer frowned. "Caroline, I swear to whatever vague amalgamation of diefic concepts you worship-"

"He's called 'Allah', and he's singular-"

Summer shook off the interjection. "-that if you continue to insult my guests, I will stick my foot all the way up your butt, and then overcharge you for the removal procedure."

Mrs. Schnee snickered twice before Summer shot her a death glare.

Caroline scrunched her mouth to the side and sighed. "Ok. I'm sorry."

"Its not me you need to apologize to," Summer stated, to her wineglass.

And Raven observed in awe as Summer convinced someone who's actual job it was to argue with people to do the opposite of that.

"I apologize for any aspersion i cast upon your empathetic abilities, Willow," Caroline said.

Willow glanced at Summer, and probably figured it was best to accept the apology. "Don't worry about it."

Summer seemed satisfied. She drained her wineglass and snapped her fingers. Raven ran over to the wine bottles. She always got a tickle how Zhu Li always knew what 'the thing' was, so Raven took undue pride that she didn't need summer to explain what she needed.

Willow cleared her throat. "So anyway, it looks like the kids are training to be anti-monarchists..."

* * *

"Slay the queen! Slay the queen!" chanted the children in hideous unison to the uncaring charnal wind.

Glynda sat at her post and stifled the urge to defend royalty in general and a specific royal in particular.

Raven had wrapped the piñata in rope and threw the rope over a branch in the tree, so Glynda just had to pull on the string to lift the piñata up. And since the only other part of her job was to make sure the children didn't do anything too out of bounds, Glynda figured she was doing her job well enough.

The children handled the blindfolding and the spinning of the current entrant with great efficiency, (to the extent that Glynda worried about what they might accomplish if their cannibalistic civil war ever resolved and they all banded together under one purpose), so all that was left was for Glynda to pull the piñata out of reach whenever the respective child tried to, aha, slay the queen.

It went fine for the first five children. Ren got a glancing hit in, and Jaune completely fumbled, but otherwise nothing exciting happened.

* * *

And then when it came for Ruby's turn-

Glynda started second-guessing herself- trying to remember exactly how hard she'd pulled the string and how long she took to pull the string before the swing connected- and how fast she'd pulled the piñata out of reach-

And the sitter figured she had the technique right, this time-

Except Ruby hit the piñata with an overhead swing after a jump, so that when Glynda pulled the piñata up to try to dodge the blow, it just collided with the bat with slightly more force than it would have if the piñata had been stationary-

And the Disney Princess burst open with the blow, spewing it's artificial confectionery innards all over the lawn. The children exulted in the dismemberment.

"Candy! Candy! Candy!" screamed the children as they descended into a feral pack of sugar-starved gremlins, clawing at the sugary bounty before them.

Like, there was fighting, and there was the gnashing of teeth and the growling of stomachs and throats-

-and there was biting-

"Hey! Uh," Glynda said, "you shouldn't bite each other!" Then, more timidly, "Um, please?"

The kids collectively paused and turned to the teenager.

"Oh, no, its fine," said Pyrrha, as she brought her left forearm up. Nora had her mouth around it, teeth barred, head sideways. She glanced up at Glynda, best she could with how her head was positioned. "Ren and Nora are orphans, so they bite. Its not bad, its just different."

Nora nodded as best she could while still having her teeth around another child's forearm.

Glynda made a smile. "I- oh, um, okay..."

Ren waved the air. "And besides, we're all slowly descending into cannibalism anyway, so it's all fine."

"Oh- uh- maybe, you should, not do that?"

Several sets of childish eyes narrowed at the teenager. Glynda sweated.

"Ah- because-' Glynda stammered, "there's candy to eat instead? And candy is more delicious than, uncooked human flesh?"

The kids looked around at each other, and shrugged in reluctant agreement.

"I suppose that does solve our food crises in the short term," said Jaune.

"But it's not as nutritious!" Yang said, in counterpoint, "Humans contain literally every vitamin, mineral, and protein a human body needs!"

And the kids looked around at each other, and shrugged in reluctant agreement,

But hey, at least they weren't eating each other.

And while they were distracted, Ruby gathered up a large horde of the candy, for herself, which she shared with Glynda.

* * *

And then it was time for the dance portion of the party. Glynda thought that made as much sense as anything; she'd never been to a garden party before, but like, it made sense enough that they'd have a dance portion and a piñata and some pretend war games. Yeah.

Raven procured her guitar from somewhere and walked down the hill, hyping up the impending dance.

The dance would be up at the top of the hill, next to the house, and the adults were invited to join in too.

* * *

Summer sat up and brushed herself off and smiled gently. She walked up to Ruby and kneeled down and placed her empty wineglass on the grass besides her. It tipped over.

"Ruby, do you need a dance partner?" Summer said. She leaned forward and held her left hand out.

"Umm," Ruby said, to the ground. She kicked her little foot, a little. "I actually asked Glynda for the first dance..."

Summer's smile slowly vanished as she stood up straight. she turned to Glynda, deliberately, and she shot the teenager the most withering stare Glynda'd never been on the receiving end on- Glynda probably imagined it, but she felt a cold breeze blow along her face and neck- or maybe it was just some variation of getting tingles on her spine.

"Okay," Summer stated. She turned to her daughter and smiled "But I got second one, okay?"

Ruby smiled. "Yeah!"

Summer nodded and stood up.

"TAI!" Summer yelled, suddenly, to the air.

"Yes?" Tai said, from behind Summer.

"I guess we're dancing," Summer said, without even looking at him. She leaned down real quick to pick up her wineglass and she made her way back to the lawnchairs, presumably to stick the glass on a table somewhere.

"O-okay," Tai said. He followed Summer.

* * *

There was a clearing made at the top of the hill where the dance was to take place. The party guests slowly gathered there. Raven procured her guitar and a lawn chair and set up at the head of the clearing.

As far as Glynda had gathered from conversations with Ruby and Yang, Raven did a lot of pop song covers and some sort of Japanese music, but she'd never actually heard Raven play the guitar. (And that actually meant that Glynda'd heard Ruby try to play guitar more than she'd heard the professional musician in their family do so. Come to think of it, maybe that was why Ruby liked the guitar so much? Because even though outwardly Ruby seemed to dislike Raven, maybe a part of her idolized her mother's extramarital friend?). So a part of Glynda was curious, at least, about what this sort of live music dance portion would be.

Raven introduced herself and told everyone to be at their places, as she sat at the edge of the chair, with the guitar in her lap, laying like it was meant to be there. She glanced over the stringy bits of it with a serene expression on her face, and she closed her eyes and took a breath and her fingers danced over the instrument.

It was just a little bit of a surprise that she did a full waltz, with the three step beat and a melody on top. With a single guitar.

Glynda felt her jaw drop. "Woah," she emitted.

Ruby appeared to Glynda's side. "Yeah, she's good, huh?" Ruby said.

"Um, yeah," Glynda managed to say. Most of her brainpower was spent trying to follow the complex rhythms of Raven's song.

Ruby waved her hand under Glynda's face, to get her attention. Glynda shook her head to clear her mind.

Ruby held her hands up in a ready position, and with just a moment's hesitation, Glynda took them and-

Shizz. What was she supposed to do next?

Ruby tilted her head to the side. "Do you know how to waltz?" she said, seeming to read Glynda's mind.

"Umm," Glynda said. She scrunched her mouth to the side and glanced at the horizon. "Honestly, no."

Ruby giggled, adorably. "It's pretty simple; there're three beats, and on the downbeat you take a big step, to the side or forward or back, with either foot. And the second beat you move your other foot to follow, and the third beat you step in place. Since it's three beats it's helpful to alternate feet every bar."

Glynda's brain started paying attention to the downbeats.

"So how do you manage not to step on each other's feet?" Glynda asked. That was actually something she'd wondered ever since she first saw people dance, and she figured hey all just practiced a lot, but now that didn't seem as likely.

"Well, the lead picks which leg and which direction, and the follow- ah, follows," Ruby said. She blinked a few times. "So, would you like to lead?"

"Um," Glynda said, "Sure?"

So, she just had to step in place and like the third one was a longer step or something- yeah, this would be easy.

So Glynda stepped out with her right foot-

And Ruby mirrored her, perfectly. Well, her foot was always right there, even though that meant she had to stretch and/or jump if Glynda took too big a step (Glynda remembered to take smaller steps after that).

And after a few measures, Glynda could do it without looking at her feet the whole time.

So she instead looked at Ruby, who was smiling at her, encouragingly. "See," Ruby said, just loud enough to be heard over the music but quiet enough that Glynda figured they wouldn't be overheard by neighboring dancers. "You got it!"

"Y-yeah," Glynda said, "Is this it?"

"Well, there's some spins and stuff we can do. And usually we'll use this time to chat, since historically it was the only time socialites were allowed to interact with each other," Ruby said.

"Oh," Glynda said. She glanced to the other couples; The two guest parent couples were smiling at each other, potentially flirting, - Summer made eye contact very briefly, and she looked like she was glaring but the look was quick enough that Glynda actually wasn't completely sure she could trust her memory.

"So do you like the party?" Ruby asked.

"Oh- yeah!" Glynda said, "There's a lot of people but, well, I know you- and Yang and Raven I guess- and like, that's a big comfort, amid all these, aha, strangers..."

Ruby beamed. It was adorable. "Awww. I'm glad you find me a comfort, Glynda."

Glynda smiled at that. Then she realized they hadn't been talking for a while.

The teenager cleared her throat. "So, did you see the trailers for the new Lego movie?"

Ruby's face brightened at that. "Yeah!" she said, and she rambled about that for the rest of the dance.

* * *

And as the song finished, Glynda felt the oppressive presence of someone standing right behind her.

And maybe Summer had picked up some tips from Tai since they'd been together, because she was waaaay closer than Glynda would have thought, once the teenager turned her head. Glynda flinched.

"Did you have fun?" Summer asked. Glynda almost said 'yes' before she realized that there was, like, no way that Summer had directed that question at her.

"Yeah!" Ruby said. She held her hands out, "Are you ready to dance, Mommy?"

"It'd be my honor," Summer said. She bowed theatrically and escorted her daughter to the dance... lawn.

* * *

So Glynda sat the next dance out. Maybe she could, just, watch all the other dancers super hard and pick up how to waltz just from studying well.

There was a basic twirly thing you could do, when the lead lifted up their arms and the follow spun under it, and you could dance facing the same way like that, until you did that twirly thing again except in reverse.

Though, there was one couple that was doing all sorts of fancy moves, which was Summer and Ruby. They did like a spinny thing where they let go of one hand and the follow spun away so that they were a maximum distance apart while still holding each others hand, and a bunch of dips where the follow leaned back and posed while the lead held them, also in a pose. And Summer did more than one lift, which considering Ruby was eight and a half, probably meant that the impressiveness to ease-of-performance ratio was pretty high.

But it still looked impressive, especially since the dress Ruby was wearing flared out on all the spins, and the frills and rose patterns poofed out.

Glynda figured that those moves were, more a long term dancing goal. But the arm lift and going under it was something she might be able to try during the next dance.

* * *

But the next dance was for the kids, it turned out. It was the chicken dance. All the kids loved it.

* * *

All in all, there were eight songs,- four waltzes, with some kid dance-a-long songs filtered in between them.

Summer took Ruby for the next slow dance but on the fourth slow dance Glynda managed to sneak in and get a dance partner. (Summer ended up dancing with Tai during that one.)

And it turned out, when your partner was significantly shorter than you, lifting your arm to allow them to spin under it wasn't all that hard. But then Ruby did the arm lift, and Glynda had to bend her knees and duck her head to get under.

But then Ruby kept on spinning, and it turned out that you could do this thing where you crossed your arms and just spun around.

Glynda laughed out loud before she got dizzy enough and Ruby stopped the dance move, and they were facing each other in their original position.

"You're getting the hang of it!" Ruby said, one they were facing each other again.

Glynda smiled.

* * *

And as the song ended and Glynda was indulging in fantasies of adequacy in regards to rhythmically moving her body for fun, there was an 'oof', loud but high-pitched- emitted by a child.

And Summer looked behind her-

"Oh," Summer stated, anti-climatically "Sorry."

Jaune was on the ground, as and Glynda quickly deduced that Summer had managed to kick him, with her last dance move.

Jaune started crying, (And Glynda would later learn that he manage to scrape his hand when he fell).

Summer sighed, theatrically. She pulled a first aid kit out of somewhere (it must have been a doctor skill) and then she stood up straight and tilted her head back.

"RAVEN!" Summer yelled, to the air.

The music stopped and Raven appeared, in front of them, standing up straight with her hands out, open, awkwardly.

"Oh! Ah," Raven said, looking at the teary-eyed child on the lawn, and then at Summer.

"I would like to sit down, as I do this," Summer said.

"Oh! Okay, uh..." Raven said.

And Raven pulled her dress up above her knees, and she keeled into the grass and then leaned forward, on all fours-

"A lawn chair," Summer said, exasperatedly. She brought her hand to her brow and sighed. "I meant that I want you to get a lawn chair from the patio, so I can sit down on the lawn chair as I tend to Juane's scrape."

"It's 'Jaune'," Jaune corrected, in between cracked voiced sobs.

And after just a moment, Raven appeared with one of the lawn chairs, and Summer sat down on it, to sort out the child's wounded arm.

And Summer put some antibacterial ointment and then a bandage, on Jaune's arm. Jaune's chokes and shudderings decreased in proportion to the progress of his wound being treated.

"Oh, ah," Raven said. She made a smile and clapped her hands, "Who, wants the cake?

And the promise of cake seemed to cheer Jaune and the rest of the children up.

* * *

And then there was a cake. Turned out it was a cookie cake (And Glynda couldn't help but feel that was exceedingly appropriate.), except piled with frosting and various toppings- which included other, smaller cookies.

And the cake was probably the reason that all the guests were now in one main group at the top of the hill (Well, one main group and a bunch of random stragglers; Qrow and James were off to the side, and Yang and Penny were under a tree, but most people were there.)

"Yay! Cookies!" Ruby said, beginning a chant.

"Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!" Chanted the children in hideous unison to the uncaring charnal wind.

"And that's not all," Raven said, suddenly pulling out a few tubs of ice cream. Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry (Idly, Glynda wondered if buying just a Neapolitan tub would have been cheaper or easier, but she supposed just one wouldn't feed the, like, 16 people here, the three separate ones would work better to accommodate different flavor preferences.)

* * *

Jacques leaned over to Summer.

"How many cookies does your daughter consume per day, would you say?" Jacques said.

"Jacques, I swear to whatever vague amalgamation of diefic concepts you worship that if you ever insult my daughter again," Summer intoned, gravely. She stood up and invaded Jacques's personal space. "I will inform you, statistically, of the life expectancies and predicted causes of death of all your childhood heroes."

Jacques's eyes widened, and he almost dropped his punch cup. "No," he whispered.

Summer' eyes twitched and her mouth turned into a rictus grin. "I do believe you and Willow were fans of Bon Jovi~"

"No please, have mercy!" Jacques cried out.

"You liked the headliner, right? You know, given his age and current habits~"

"No! We fell in love listening to his fresh yet funky musical stylings," Jacques said, his body trembling, "Please- please have mercy-

"THEN BEG!" Summer yelled, "BEG LIKE AN ANIMAL!"

Tai appeared there, then. He put a hand on Summer's shoulder. "Ah, dearie-

"WE'RE ALL ANIMALS!" Summer yelled, as she waved her arms in the air and cackled.

But with Tai's help, Summer managed to stop making noises long enough for other people to hear the words coming out of thir own mouths.

Jacques cleared his throat, and there was a noticeable waver in his voice. "I apologize-"

"ACCEPTED," Summer yelled. She slapped his shoulder. Jacques flinched.

And then Summer's manic smile vanished and she brought her head next to Jacques, conspiratorially, "Just don't let it happen again~"

Jacques blinked. "Ah- yes-"

Summer nodded and she stepped back, but her expression didn't change. "Now eat your ice cream."

Jacques looked down into his hands, where someone had pushed a bowl of ice cream.

He took a bite nervously.

* * *

Glynda was worried that giving children sugar would make them even more hyperactive than they did, especially since when it was Ruby's turn to take a piece, she cut a second piece (a very large second piece), on a second plate.

But then, it turned out that that second piece was for Glynda.

Ruby waddled up to her sitter and held out a piece of cookie cake with cookie dough ice cream for her.

Glynda graciously accepted the food, and at Ruby's behest, she took a bite of the cake in front of an expectant audience (and though Ruby never broke eye contact, she managed to eat half her slice of cookie cake without needing to look down at it.)

As soon as Glynda swallowed, Ruby beamed up at her.

"Do you like your cake, Glynda?" Ruby enunciated, around a mouthful of dessert.

"Ah," Glynda said she looked at the much larger slice that had been given to her, that she was nowhere near finishing, and she didn't have the heart to tell Ruby it was too sweet for her.

"Yeah, I'm savoring it," Glynda said.

That seemed to satisfy Ruby. She went over to Pyrrha to talk about some kind of cannibal cookies.

And when nobody was looking, she scooped some of the extraneous frosting into one of the garbage bins.

* * *

And after the children and adults finished their food, it was time for the party to officially start winding down.

Some of the children were flopped on their backs on the lawn, laid low by their recent consumption of high-calorie confections, crumbs and ice cream and chocolate chips coating the edges of their mouths. They groaned, dying gasps as they shuffled off their mortal coils, casualties of the party lifestyle.

* * *

Now, it was time for cleanup and to start saying goodbye to the guests. Since Glynda had driven here, she figured she could stick around to help clean up, and also maybe shed try to steal some of the extra sandwiches. Like, the way squirrels do, by stuffing them in her cheeks.

Someone came by to pick up Jaune and Pyrrha, and they left with some of the food. (But Glynda swiped her own piece when they weren't looking)

Yang said her goodbyes to Penny and Qrow, and to the, ah- Ironwoods?

But then at one point, Glynda saw a familiar head of curly black hair walk in the side gate to the backyard, and her heart stopped, but not long enough to prevent the teenager from running into the house and pressing herself against the wall, next to the door.

Ruby saw her do it, and she followed. When she caught up she looked concerned. "What's wrong?" Ruby asked.

"Oh- nothing," Glynda lied. "You- you should be out there, being- being visible, to your guests-"

Ruby giggled, "To not draw attention to you? Got it." She smiled at Glynda one last time before she left.

* * *

Glynda looked over the inside furniture to distract herself (there was an open area in this dining room, and beyond a cutaway she could see the couch where she and Ruby spent so much time watching cartoons), but Cinder's voice was hard to not notice among the ambient sounds.

"Hey~o," Cinder called out. "Nora! Ren! I'm here to drag you back to hell~"

"Okay- we just gotta say goodbye first," said Nora.

And then, after a moment-

"Oh," Cinder said, "It's you."

Glynda peaked out from her hiding place.

In the middle of the lawn, Ruby, Ren and Nora were facing off against Cinder.

Ruby narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "It is me. And I must also say, that it is you."

Ren extended a hand out to Ruby. They shook hands very slightly, wordlessly.

Nora, in contrast, grabbed Ruby's hand with both of hers and shook it around.

"Bye Ruby! It was super fun!" Nora said.

Cinder froze, at that point.

"Wait, _you're_ Ruby?" Cinder said.

"Yeah," Ruby said. "And you're a dumbface."

"So that means~," and even though she wasn't looking Glynda could all too clearly imagine Cinder's smirk. "That Glynders is around here too? I thought one of the cars out front looked familiar..."

"I saw her run inside," Nora said, raising her hand to point- but Glynda ducked her head back in before

But after a moment, she sighed. Because the jig was up, and she'd just have to bite the bullet for an awkward conversation with her nemesis-

And Cinder knew- she knew she was here, at an eight-and-a-half year old's party - she'd be so insufferable about- about something.

Well, to be fair, Cinder didn't really need a reason to be insufferable.

Glynda took one last breath and stood up tall and she stepped into the yard.

"Hey Glynders~" Cinder said.

Glynda opened her eyes- And Cinder did, indeed, have the most insufferable smirk. "Cinder. I see you're being tasked with chauffeuring around small children."

"Yeah, but that's not important," Cinder hid her mouth behind her finger tips. "So you got yourself invited to some kid's- what party was this again?"

"A garden party," Ren said.

"Specifically it was a 'Reading achievement garden party'," Nora said.

Cinder's face did something stupid. "Oh, really?" she said, almost without laughing.

"Well, I'm sure it's not the most embarrassing thing you've ever done, Glynders~" Cinder waved the air stupidly.

Glynda frowned- but not as much as Ruby did.

"Well!" Ruby exclaimed. She folded her arms and pouted, "It's less embarrassing than a shizz waifu-"

"Ruby!" yelled Raven, suddenly, from the other side of the yard. She immediately ended her conversation with Qrow and James and ran up to her- stepdaughter? Whatever it was Ruby was to her.

Ruby looked a little guilty as Raven kneeled down and put her hand on Ruby's shoulder. Ruby avoided eye contact.

"Ruby," Raven said, "You must never insult someone's Waifu. You understand?"

Ruby smushed her lips together and didn't move or say anything.

"Someone's Waifu is a reflection of not only their innermost desires, but an externalization of their will, as well as a mark of bravery and self-actualization inherent in actually publicizing it."

Raven painted a panorama with her arm, in front of Ruby, as she continued her speech.

"And that is why it is imperative that you give an individual's Waifu the same respect you give them."

Ruby puffed out her cheek but she agreed, quietly.

Raven stood up and managed to lean on only the air. "So, who's your Waifu, then?

Cinder grinned, stupidly, at the ground, stupidly. "Ah..." she said.

Ravens face did a thing, but she recovered well and she started talking about her history with Waifus.

And during that time, the four remaining adult guests- Caroline, Shaung, Jacques, and Willow, left with their respective daughters (Glynda saw Blake and Weiss hug each other deeply, and she wondered if Raven was right, in that those two fifth graders were secretly in an illicit romantic relationship that their parents would disown them for). Tai finished cleaning up the remains of the queen, under the tree.

"Come by the music shop one day. Its down on 8th and main," Raven said, as a goodbye.

Cinder pointed finger guns at the adult. "I actually am in my school's light music club, so, absolutely!"

And that actually restarted the conversation, so it was fifteen more minutes before Cinder finally left.

* * *

And after the cleanup, Glynda found herself clapping her hands right outside the back door.

"Glynda!" Ruby ran up to Glynda. "Did you have fun?

"I- did!" Glynda said, making a smile. And it wasn't a lie, it was just, also kind of overwhelming, and she wasn't sure when this little knot of anxiety that settled into her diaphragm would go away. "You did a good job, Ruby!"

Ruby giggled. "Thanks, but I think as the host it should be Raven who takes the credit."

Glynda must have subconsciously glanced over at Raven, just then.

"So, Glynda," Ruby said. She glanced down and kicked her little feet a little. "Do you want to hang out a little bit, just the two of us?"

Glynda smiled. "Sure!"

Glynda rubbed the back of her head. "Like, the party was fun, but you and Yang were really the only people I knew, so..."

Ruby's eyes went wide and she brought s her hands to her face. "Oh no! I'm sorry-"

"No no, its fine- I'm glad you had a lot of fun!" Glynda said, hastily, "and I'm fine, not having attention all the time- its just, it was a little overwhelming..."

Ruby's concern slowly evaporated from her face. "Oh! Yeah, sometimes Ravens like that too." She then waved for Glynda to follow her.

* * *

And right before they entered the house, Summer suddenly appeared, in between them.

"Ruby~," Summer said, trying to hug her daughter- 'tried' being the operative word, "Everyone else is gone, so now we can hang out, just the two of us-"

Ruby pushed her mother's arms away. "Mommy, no. "

Summer then paused, and she tilted her head to the side and pouted. "W-whats wrong, my sweet baby girl?" She said with an exaggerated voice affect.

"You got drunk at my party~" Ruby whined. She folded her arms.

"Mommy had a long day at work-"

"And you were super embarrassing in front of all my friends~"

"That's just because I love you so much-"

"And you were mean to Raven-"

Summer made a grimace. "That's- well, relationships are a complicated hurricane of emotions-"

"And you kicked Jaune in the stomach-"

"Hey, I fixed that-"

"And you never even said hi to Yang." Ruby nodded in finality.

Summer blinked. "Is-" she began, her voice less confident, "is that right?"

Yang stood there. She smiled, awkwardly, at the ground, but then she waved the air with her hand. "Nah, that's fine, don't mind me-"

"Ruby, I'm so sorry-" Summer began. She held her arms out.

Ruby swatted away Summer's hug and stepped back. Ruby folded her arms.

"No." Ruby squeaked. She closed her eyes and turned her head away and harrumphed.

"Ruby~" Summer cried out, and she got on her knees to beg. "Please, my sweet baby girl, I promise ill make it up to you...?"

And there was a pregnant pause (or maybe it just felt like one) before Ruby responded.

"No." Ruby said, and she harrumphed again.

"But I love you~" Summer whined.

"Then that's _your_ problem," Ruby said. She turned away more. "I'll just have Raven pick me up from school, and Yang can help me with Homework, and Glynda can watch cartoons and play blocks with me."

There was another pause, before Summer spoke again.

" _You_ ," Summer spat, as she turned to the babysitter. She wobbled to her feet and ran up to Glynda. "What did you do to corrupt my daughter?"

"I- ah-" Glynda began,-

But then a blue latex glove hit Glynda in the face.

Glynda blinked.

Glynda kneeled down to pick it up. "I'm sure we can, just, talk about thi-"

"Glynda noooo~!" Yang yelled. She clutched her face with her hand.

Glynda blinked. She stood back up and held the glove out, but Summer didn't take it.

Summer smirked and exhaled, and then, breathing heavily, she ran into the house. "RAVEN! I'M BORROWING YOUR SAMURAI SWORD!"

Glynda blinked, again. "Um. What?"

"You accepted the duel," Yang explained, her voice tinted with horror.

From further inside the house, Glynda could hear Summer cackle something.

"Um," Glynda said again, but more forcefully this time, "What."


End file.
